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Epochs of History 

EDITED BY 

EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. 



THE CRUSADES. 



G. W. COX, M.A. 



EPOCHS SELECTED, 



THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By F. Seebohm, 
Author of ' The Oxford Reformers,* — Now ready. 

THE CRUSADES. By the Rev. G. W, Cox, M.A.; Author of the 
' History of Greece.' — Now ready. 

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 161S-1648. By Samuel Rawson Gar- 
diner. — Nearly ready. 

THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES; CHARLES the GREAT 
and ALFRED; the HISTORY of ENGLAND in its connexion 
with that of EUROPE in the NINTH CENTURY. By the Very 
Rev. R. W. Church, M.A. Dean of St. Paul's. 

THE NORMAN KINGS AND THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. By the Rev, 
A. H. Johnson, M.A. 

THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS and their relation to the HISTORY 
of EUROPE; the foundation and growth of CONSTITUTIONAL 
GOVERNMENT. By the Rev. William Stuebs, M.A. &c. Regius 
Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 

EDWARD III. By the Rev. W. Wareurton, M.A. 

THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK; with the CONQUEST 
and LOSS of FRANCE. By James Gairdner of the Public Record 
Office. 

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By the Rev. M, Creighton, M.A. 

THE STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION. ByJ.LANcxoN 
Sanford, Author of ' Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion.' 

THE FALL OF THE STUARTS; and WESTERN EUROPE from 
1678 to 1697. By the Rev. Edward Hale, M.A. Assistant-Master 
at Eton. 

THE AGE OF ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A. Editor of the 
Series. 

FREDERICK THE GREAT and the SEVEN YEARS' WAR. By F. 

W. Longman, of Balliol College, Oxford. 

THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. By John Malcolm 
Ludlow. 



EACH I VOL. i6M0., CLOTH, UNIFORM. PRICE, ^1.25. 

/, New York: SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & CO. 



'=3-^ 



s' 



THE CRUSADES 



BY 



GEORGE W. COX, M.A. 



AUTHOR OF 
'history of GREECE* 'MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS* 



rv 



ETC. 



\^ 



SA^^>n 




NEW YORK 
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND CO. 

1874 '. 



\. 






Jas. B. Rodgers Co., 
Electrotypers and Printers, 

52 & 54 N. Sixth ST.|i^ ffWs^^ 



PHILADELPHIA. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



CAUSES LEADING TO THE CRUSADES. 
A. D. PAGE. 

The crusades a series of popular wars . . i 
Distinction between the crusades and other wars of 

the Middle Ages . . . . . .2 

Absence of local feeling in the earliest Christian 

traditions 3 

The Christianity of St. Paul 4 

The Christianity of the Roman empire ... 4 
Localism of heathen religions . . . .6 
Influence of these local religions on Christianity . 6 
Growth of local associafldns'ih Palestine . . 7 
Growth of pilgrimage t(i the holy places of Palestine 8 
Gradual decay of spiritual religion ... 9 
Encouragement given to pilgrimages ... 9 

Trade in relics 10 

Stimulus given by pilgrimages to commerce with 

the East 10 

The long struggle between Rome and Persia . . 10 
611 Capture of Jerusalem by the Persian king Khosru II. 11 

Persian invasion of Egypt 11 

622-625 Campaigns of the emperor Heraclius . . .11 

627 Battle of Nineveh 11 

628 Restoration of the True Cross by the Persians . 12 

629 Pilgrimage of Heraclius to Jerusalem . . .12 
637 Conquest of Palestine by Omar . . . .12 

Terms of the treaty made by Omar with the Chris- 
tians of Jerusalem 13 

Omar and the patriarch Sophronios . . - 13 
Effects of Arabian conquest on pilgrimage to Jeru- 
salem . . . '. 14 

vii 



viii Contents. 

A. D. PAGE. 

Uninterrupted continuance of pilgrimage . . 14 

loio Ravages of the Egyptian sultan Hakem in Jerusalem 14 
Persecution of Jews in Europe . . . -15 
Tax levied on pilgrims at the gates of Jerusalem . 15 
Expectation of the end of the world A. D. 1000 . 15 

997 Conversion of Hungary under king Stephen . . 16 
Advance of the Seljukian Turks . . . '1^7 

1092 Division of the Seljukian empire . . . .17 
Appeal of the Greek emperor Alexios to Western 
Christendom 17 

1076 Seljukian conquest of Jerusalem . . . .18 
Increased burdens of the Christian pilgrims . .18 
Decline of commerce with the East . . .18 
Oppression of the Christians of Palestine . .19 
General indignation felt in Western Christendom . 19 
Need of a religious sanction to sustain and direct 
this feeling 19 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT. 

Influence of Roman imperialism on the early popes 20 
Schemes and motives of Gregory VII. . . ,22 

1074 His circular letter to the faithful . 

108 1 The Normans in Italy . 

1095 Council of Piacenza 
Council of Clermont 

1093 Pilgrimage of the hermit Peter to Jerusalem . . 26 

1094 The mission and preaching of the hermit , . 27 

1095 Decrees of the council of Clermont prohibiting 

private wars and confirming the Truce of God . 29 
Speech of Urban II. before the people 
The assent of the multitude . 
The cross and the vow of the crusaders 
Motives of the crusaders 
Financial effects of the crusades . 



22 

23 
24 

25 



30 
31 
32 
32 
34 



Contents. ix 

\. D. PAGE 

Effects of the crusades on the power of the pope 

and the clergy ....... 35 

Dispensing power of the pope . . . -35 
Tendency of the crusades to break up the feudal 

system 35 

Increasing wealth of the pope and the clergy . 36 

Alienation, and pledging or mortgaging, of lands . 36 

The prusades not national enterprises . . • 37 

1085 Condition of Europe in the time of Urban II. . 38 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FIRST CRUSADE. 



1096 Departure of the first rabble of crusaders under 

Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless . 39 
Second rabble under Emico and Gotschalk . . 40 
Bloody persecutions of the Jews . . . .40 
The Jews taken under the protection of the empire 41 
March of Walter and his followers through Hun- 
gary and Bulgaria 41 

Passage of the pilgrims across the Bosporos 
Their utter destruction by Kilidje Arslan . 
Rank and character of the leaders of the first crusade, 
Godfrey of Bouillon and his brothers Baldwin 

and Eustace 
Hugh of Vermandois 
Robert of Normandy 
Robert of Flanders, and Steph 
Adhemar, bishop of Puy 
Raymond of Toulouse 
Bohemond 
Tancred . 
Cause and effect of chivalry 
Knighthood , 
Courtesy . 
August Departure of the main army of the crusaders under 

Godfrey . 49 



en of Chartres 



42 
42 
43 

43 
43 
44 
44 
44 
45 
45 
45 
46 

47 

48 



X Contents. 

A. D. PAGE 

Captivity of Hugh of Vermandois . . . 49 
Christmas Arrival of Godfrey before the walls of Constanti- 
nople 

Policy of the emperor Alexios . . 

Compact between Alexios and the crusaders 

Homage of the crusaders to Alexios 

Disastrous march of Raymond of Toulouse to Con- 
stantinople 

Refusal of Raymond to do homage 

1097 Conduct of Alexios to the crusaders 
March Passage of the crusaders across the Bosporos . 

Thorough antagonism between the crusaders and 

the Greeks 

Contrast between the Greek and Latin clergy 
Numbers of the crusaders .... 
June Siege and fall of Nice (Nikaia) 

July 4 Battle of Dorylaion 

March to Cogni and the Pisidian Antioch 
Quarrel between Godfrey and Tancred at Tarsus 
Conquest of Edessa by Baldwin . 
October Arrival of the crusaders before the Syrian Antioch. 
Siege of Antioch , . 
Folly of the besiegers .... 
Famine in the crusading camp 
Arrival of envoys from the sultan of Egypt 
Their terms rejected by the crusaders • 

1098 Fierce warfare between the Christians and the Turks. 
March Plans of Bohemond for the reduction of Antioch 
June Betrayal of Antioch to Bohemond . 

Arrival of the Persians under Kerboga . 
Desertion of Stephen of Chartres . 
Desperate straits of the crusaders in Antioch 
Discovery of the Holy Lance 
Fate of the discoverer .... 

June 28 Battle of Antioch 

Defeat of Kerboga .... 
Antioch made a principality for Bohemond 
Mission of Hugh of Vermandois to Constantinople. 



Contents. xi 

A. D. PAGE 

Death of Adhemar, bishop of Puy . • . . .70 

Siege and capture of Marra 71 

1099, May March of the crusaders from Antioch . . -71 

June Siege of Jerusalem 72 

July Storming of the city 74 

Adoration of the crusaders in the church of the 
Sepulchre ........ 74 

Exaltation of Peter the Hermit . . . .75 

Second and deliberate massacre in Jerusalem . 75 
Comparison of Omar and Godfrey . . . .76 

Election of Godfrey to the sovereignty of Jerusalem 76 

Battle of Ascalon ^^ 

Return of the pilgrims to Europe . . . * 17 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

1099-1100 Reign of Godfrey .77 

Daimbert, patriarch of Jerusalem . . . .78 

Assize of Jerusalem 78 

Judicial courts instituted by Godfrey , . .79 

1100-1118 Baldwin 1 80 

iioi Death of Stephen of Chartres . . . .80 

1105 . Death of Raymond of Toulouse . . .80 

Sequel of the career of Bohemond . . .81 

1112 Death of Tancred 82 

Effect of the crusades on the Byzantine empire 82 

Fresh swarms of pilgrims . , . .82 

1101 Death of Hugh of Vermandois . . f 83 

1 1 18 Death of the emperor Alexios . . • 13 

1118-1131 Baldwin H., king of Jerusalem . , , .84 

1115 Conquest of Sidon . . . . , ,84 

1 1 24 Conquest of Tyre .84 

1131-1144 Fulk, king of Jerusalem . . . . .85 

1144-1162 Baldwin IH 85 

1 145 Fall of Edessa . . , . . . . .85 



xu 



Contents. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE SECOND CRUSADE. 



A. D. 



II37 
1 146 

Easter 



1 147 
Whitsun- 
tide 



1 148 
March 



IIS3 



1151 
1153 
1162 



Bernard the apostle of the second crusad e 

Sources of Bernard's influence 

Death of Louis VI. of France 

Council of Vezelai . 

Speech of Bernard 

The Knights Templars . 

Reluctance of Conrad, emperor of Germany, to join 

the crusade 

Meeting of Louis VII. and the pope at St. Denys 
Persecution of the Jews stirred up by the monk 

Rodolph 

Suppressed by Bernard .... 
March of the crusaders under Conrad and Louis 
Refusal of Conrad to meet the emperor Manuel at 

Constantinople .... 
Supposed treachery of Manuel 
Disastrous march of Conrad and Louis 
Visit of the French king to Jerusalem 
Resolution to attack Damascus 
Siege of Damascus 
Treachery of the barons of Palestine 
Retreat of the army to Jerusalem . 
Failure of the crusade . 
Accusations against St. Bernard . 
His answer . . . , , 
Death of St. Bernard . 



PAGE 

86 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE LOSS OF JERUSALEM. 



90 

90 
91 

91 
92 
92 

92 

93 
93 

94 
94 
95 
95 
95 
95 
96 
96 
97 



Misuse of victory by the crusaders . , .97 
Death of Joceline of Courtenay . . . .97 

Siege and fall of Ascalon 97 

Death of Baldwin III. Almeric elected king of 
Jerusalem 98 



Contents, 



Xlll 



A. D. 

Relations of Almeric with the sultans of Egypt and 

Aleppo 

Mission of Shiracouh and Saladin to Egypt . 
Siege and surrender of Shiracouh in Pelusium 
1 163 Defeat of the Latins by Noureddin, sultan of Aleppo 
Alliance of Almeric with the Egyptian sultan 

1167 Operations of Almeric against Shiracouh 
Real designs of Almeric 

1168 Expedition of Almeric to Pelusium 
His ignominious retreat 
Rise of Saladin to power in Egypt 

1 1 69 Attempts to stir up a crusade 
1 171 Suppression of the Fatimite caliphat by Saladin 

Quarrel between Saladin and the sultan of Aleppo 103 
I173 Death of Noureddin, sultan of Aleppo 
Character of Noureddin 
Baldwin IV., king of Jerusalem . 

1186 Baldwin V., king of Jerusalem 
Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem 
Preparations of Saladin for the re-conquest of, 

salem 

1187 Battle of Tiberias . 
July Capture of Guy of Lusignan . 

Loss of the True Cross . 
Fruits of the victory of Saladin 
Siege and fall of Jerusalem . 
Terms of the capitulation 
Departure of the Latins from the Holy City 
Entry of Saladin into Jerusalem 
Escape of Tyre under Conrad 
Further conquests of Saladin 
Causes of weakness in the kingdom of Jerusalem 
(i) Bad faith in deahng with the Moslem 

(2) Disregard of rights of property 

(3) Lax military disciphne 

(4) Total lack of statesmanship 

(5) General immorality . 

(6) Desultory character of the crusades 



Jeru- 



99 
99 
99 
99 
100 
100 

lOI 
lOI 

102 
102 

102 



103 
103 
104 

104 
104 

105 

105 

106 

106 

107 

, 107 

, 109 

, 109 

, no 

, no 

. no 

. Ill 

. Ill 

. Ill 

. Ill 

. Ill 

. 112 

. 112 



xiv Contents. 



PAGE 

(7) Quarrels and feuds of the Latin chiefs . 112 

( 8 ) Antagonistic j urisdictions of the civil power, 

the church, and the military orders . .113 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE THIRD CRUSADE. 

Fictitious or romantic portraits of Richard I. of 
England 114 

Real character of the actors in the third crusade . 115 

Decay of the crusading spirit . . . .115 

Change in the character of the crusades . .116 

1174 Henry II. of England and the patriarch of Jerusalem 117 

1187 Death of Urban III 118 

Pontificate of Gregory VIII 118 

1 188 Assumption of the cross by Henry II. and Philip 

Augustus of France 119 

Saladin tax or tenth . . . . . .119 

Feuds in the family of Henry II 119 

1189 Death of Henry II 121 

July Preparations of Richard I. for the crusade . . 121 

Modes of raising money 122 

Persecution and massacre of Jews in England . 122 
Fearful tragedy in York castle . . . '122 

1190 Meeting of Richard and Philip at Vezelai . ' . 124 
Poetry and influence of the troubadours . .124 
March of Frederick I.,Barbarossa, to Constantinople 124 
The popes and the empire . . . . .125 

Death of Frederick I. . .... 125 

Re-occupation of Antioch ..... 126 

1189 Siege of Acre by the Latins of Palestine . . 126 
Rise of the Teutonic order ..... 127 

1190 Death of Sybilla, queen of Jerusalem . . . 127 

Conrad, titular king of Jerusalem • . . 128 

Sept. 23 Voyage of the English fleet to Lisbon and Messina 128 

Conduct of Richard I. in Sicily .... 128 

Quarrel between Richard and Philip Augustus . 129 

1 191 War between Richard and the Comnenian emperor 
March of Cyprus . . . . . . . . 130 



Contents. xv 



131 
131 
131 
132 

133 



A. D. PAGE 

Arrival of Richard and Philip at Acre . . . 130 

July 13 Surrender of Acre 

Return of Philip to France .... 
Massacre of five thousand Turkish hostages . 
Victory of Richard at Azotus 
Abortive negotiations with Saladin 
Feud between the English king and the duke of 
Austria 

1192 Henry of Champagne, titular king of Jerusalem 
March of Richard towards Jerusalem 
Retreat of the army from Bethlehem . , . 

Relief of Jaffa 

Truce between the crusaders and Saladin 
Pilgrimage to Jerusalem .... 
Results of the third crusade .... 
Captivity of Richard I. in Austria 

1193 Exertions made for the liberation of Richard 
Richard before the diet at Hagenau 

1 194 Release of Richard 

His return to England 



133 
134 
13s 
13s 
13s 
136 
136 
136 
137 
138 
139 
140 
140 



CHAPTER Vin. 

THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 

Motives of the chief promoters of the fourth crusade 140 
1193 Death of Saladin and its consequences . . .. 141 
Encouragement given to the crusade by the em- 
peror Henry VI. ...... 141 

1196 Death of Henry VI 142 

Arrival of his barons with their troops in the Holy 

Land =........ 142 

Capture of Jaffa by Saphadin .... 142 

Arrival of fresh crusaders under Conrad, bishop of 

Hildesheim ;....,. 142 

1197 Siege of the castle of Thoron .... 142 
Complete defeat of the crusaders .... 143 
Capture of Jaffa, and massacre of the crusaders . 143 
Almeric of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem and Cyprus 144 



xvi Contents. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 
A. D. PAGE 

1198 Election of Innocent III. ; . : . . 144 
Effect of the crusades in extending the jurisdiction 

of the pope 145 

Weakening of the imperial power . . . 146 
Growing mistrust of the court of Rome by the 

peoples of Europe 146 

Effects of Innocent to remove this mistrust , . 147 

Fulk of Neuilly 148 

The mission of Fulk sanctioned by the pope . 149 
Efforts of his eloquence 149 

1202 Death of Fulk 150 

1200 The chiefs of the fifth crusade .... 150 

1201 Mission from the French barons to Venice . . 150 
Compact for the conveyance of the crusaders to 

Palestine 151 

1202 Failure of the crusaders to make up the sum agreed 

on with the Venetians 152 

Proposal to commute the payment by an expedi- 
tion against Zara 153 

1195 Mission to Rome to ask aid for the dethroned 

Byzantine emperor, Isaac Angelus . , .153 
Determination of the Venetians to insist on the 

expedition to Zara 154 

1202 Siege and conquest of Zara, Nov. 15 . . . 155 
Proposal to direct the crusade to the restoration 

of Alexios at Constantinople .... 155 
Resolution to accept the terms proposed by Alexios 156 
Negotiations with the pope for the removal of 



the interdict 



157 



1203 Vain attempts of Innocent to oppose the expedition 158 
Easter Arrival of the fleet at Constantinople . . . 158 
Flight of the usurper Alexios .... 159 
The crusaders are compelled to winter at Constanti- 
nople - . . . 160 

Efforts of Mourzoufie to detach Alexios from the 
crusaders ..... ... 160 



Contents, xvii 

A. O. PAGE 

Deposition and death of Alexios . . . i6i 

Resolution to set up a Latin dynasty in Constanti- 
nople i6i 

1204 Siege and conquest of Constantinople . . 162 

April Horrible excesses of the crusaders . . . 162 

Election of Baldwin, count of Flanders, as em- 
peror of the East 163 

Election of Thomas Morosini as patriarch of Con- 
stantinople ........ 164 

Embassies from Baldwin and the Venetians to the 
pope 165 

Answers of Innocent III 166 

Results of the crusade to the pope and to the Vene- 
tians 167 



CHAPTER X. 

THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Contrast between the Greeks and the Latins . 168 
Attempt to upset the civilization of the old empire 169 
Conduct of the pope towards the Greek clergy 170 
Opposition of the French clergy to the new patriarch 171 
Partition of the empire among the crusading chiefs 172 

1204 Rise ofnew empires at Nice, Trebizond, and Durazzo 173 

1205 Massacre of the Latins in Thrace by order of the 

Bulgarian Calo-John ...... 173 

April Captivity of the emperor Baldwin . . . 174 

Death of Baldwin 174 

1206-1216 Henry I., brother of Baldwin, emperor of Con- 
stantinople . ....... 175 

1207 Assassination of Calo-John . . . , , 175 

• Wise government of the emperor Henry . . 176 

Death of Henry . . . . . . . 176 

Peter of Courtenay, emperor of Constantinople . 176 

1218 Captivity and death of Peter of Courtenay . . 177 

1219 Robert, emperor of Constantinople . . . xj,jr-f'^ 
1228 John of Brienne, emperor of Constantinople . 178 

A 



XVlll 



Contents. 



A. D. PAGE 

1235 Siege of Constantinople by Vataces . . . 179 

1237-1261 Baldwin 11. , emperor of Constantinople . . 179 

Efforts to raise money . . . • i • • ^79 

Sale of relics 179 

1255 Death of Vataces 180 

1259 The envoys of Baldwin repelled by Michael Paleo- 

logos 180 

1261 Recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks . . 181 
July Permanent alienation of the East from the West . 18 1 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE SIXTH CRUSADE. 

Chief features of the sixth crusade . . . . 182 
Depression of the Latins in Palestine . . , 183 
1204 Truce between Saphadin and the Christians . .183 
1210 John of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem , . 184 
Zeal of Innocent III. in promoting a new crusade . 184 
Robert of Courcon 185 

1215 Fourth council of Lateran 185 

1216 Crusade of Andrew, king of Hungary . . . 186 

1218 Siege of Damietta 186 

Death of Saphadin . . . . . .186 

Terms of peace offered by Coradin • . .187 
Mad rejection of the terms by the crusaders . . 187 

1219 Fall of Damietta, Nov. 5 187 

1220 March of the Christians for Cairo .... 187 

The old terms again rejected 187 

Ruin of the crusaders 188 

1212 Frederick II., grandson of Barbarossa . . .188 
The popes and the emperors .... 188 

Otho of Brunswick 189 

1214 Battle of Bouvines .... . . 189 

1216 Honorius III., pope 189 

1221 Loss of Damietta 190 

1222 Treaty of Ferentino . . . " . . . 190 
1225 Treaty of San Germano 191 

Frederick, king of Naples, Sicily, and Jerusalem . 191 



Contents. xix 

A. D. PAGE 

1227 Gregory IX., pope 191 

Excommunication of the emperor .... 193 

1228 Departure of Frederick from Brundusium . . 195 
Landing of Frederick at Ptolemais . . . 195 

1229 Treaty between Frederick and the sultan Kameel . 196 
Feb. 18 Frederick at Jerusalem 196 

Moderation of the emperor 197 

Condemnation of the treaty by Gregory IX. . . 198 
Return of the emperor with the crusaders to Europe 198 
Renewed excommunication of the emperor . . 199 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SEVENTH CRUSADE. 



Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans . 199 
Charges of peculation against the papal collectors . 200 
1230 Opposition of the pope and the emperor to the new 

crusade ........ 200 

1239 Arrival of the French crusaders at Acre . . 201 
Their complete failure 201 

1240 The English crusade 201 

Treaty between Richard of Cornwall and the Egyp- 
tian sultan ........ 201 

1242 Invasion of the Korasmians . . . . . 201 
Alliance of the Templars with the Syrians . . 202 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE EIGHTH CRUSADE. 



1245 Council of Lyons .... 
1226 Louis IX., king of France 

Louis IX. , the pope, and the emperor 
1245 Assumption of the cross by Louis IX. 

1248 Departure of Louis from France . 

1249 Capture of Damietta 
March of the army towards Cairo 



. 202 
. 203 
. 205 
. 207 
. 208 
. 209 
. 209 
Total defeat of the forces under the count of Artois 210 



XX Contents. 

A. D. PAGE. 

1250 The king taken prisoner 211 

Firmness of the king 211 

Terms of ransom 211 

Murder of Turan Shah 212 

Release of Louis IX 212 

Pilgrimage of Louis to Nazareth . . . .212 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NINTH CRUSADE. 



Comparison of the earlier and later crusades . 213 

1259 Battle between the Templars and Hospitallers . 214 
1263 Invasion of Palestine by the Mameluke sultan 

Bibars 214 

Loss of Antioch 214 

1270 Second crusade of Louis IX 215 

Death of the king ....... 216 

1271 Capture of Nazareth by Edward, son of Henry III. 

of England ....... 216 

1272 Return of Edward to Europe .... 217 
Vain efforts of Gregory X. to stir up a crusade . 217 
Claims to the titular kingdom of Jerusalem . . 217 

I291 Loss of Acre . 218 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SEQUEL OF THE RELIGIOUS WARS. 

Gradual decay and extinction of the crusading spirit 219 
Persecution and suppression of the Knights Temp- 
lars 220 

The Albigensian crusades 221 

I212 The Children's crusades 222 

Indirect results of the crusades . , . . 224 



MAP. 

General Map for the History of the 
Crusades To face title-page. 



THE CRUSADES. 



CHAPTER I. 

CAUSES LEADING TO THE CRUSADES. 

The Crusades were a series of wars, waged by men who 
wore on their garments the badge of the Cross as a 
pledge binding them to rescue the Holy Land 
and the Sepulchre of Christ from the grasp of crusades— 
the unbeliever. The dream of such an enter- popular 
prise had long floated before the minds of ^^'^^• 
keen-sighted popes and passionate enthusiasts : it was 
realized for the first time when, after listening to the 
burning eloquence of Urban II. at the council ^ j) ^.^^^ 
of Clermont, the assembled multitude with ''^°^- 
one voice welcomed the sacred war as the will of God. 
If we regard this undertaking as the simple expression 
of popular feeling stirred to its inmost depths, we may 
ascribe to the struggle to which they thus committed 
themselves a character wholly unlike that of any earlier 
wars waged in Christendom, or by the powers of Christen- 
dom against enemies who lay beyond its pale. States- 
men (whether popes, kings, or dukes) might have availed 
themselves eagerly of the overwhelming impulse impart- 
ed by the preaching of Peter the Hermit to passions long 
pent up ; but no authority of pope, emperor, or king, 
could suffice of itself to open the floodgates for the 
waters which might sweep away the infidel. In this 
sense only were men stirred, whether at the council of 

B 



2 The Crusades. CH. i. 

Piacenza in 1094, or in that of Clermont, to a strife of a 
wholly new kind. If Urban II. gave his blessing to the 
missionaries who were to convert the Saracens at the 
point of the sword, the papal benediction 
had been given nearly thirty years before at 
the instigation of Hildebrand to the expedition by which 
the Norman William hoped to crush the free English 
people and usurp the throne of the king whom they had 
chosen. 

But the movement of the Norman duke against Eng- 
land was merely the work of a sovereign well awake to 
his own interest and confident in the methods 

Distinction ^ i-iii -ttii 

between the by which he chose to promote it. Under the 
othe? wLrol- sacred standard sent to him by Pope Alex- 
the Middle ander II. he gathered, indeed, a motley host 

Ages. ° . . •' . 

of adventurers ; but the religious enthusiasm 
by which these may have fancied themselves to be ani- 
mated had reference chiefly to the broad acres to which 
they looked forward as their recompense. The great 
gulf which separated such an undertaking from the cru- 
sade of the hermit Peter lay in the conviction, deep even 
to fanaticism, that the wearers of the Cross had before 
them an enterprise in which failure, disaster, and death 
were not less blessed, not less objects of envy and long- 
ing, than the most brilliant conquests and the most splen- 
did triumphs. They were hastening to the land where 
their Divine Master had descended from his throne in 
heaven to take on Himself the form of man — where for 
years the everlasting Son of the Almighty Father had 
patiently toiled, healing the sick, comforting the afflicted, 
and raising the dead, until at length He carried his own 
Cross up the height of Calvary, and having offered up 
his perfect sacrifice, put off the garments of his humi- 
liation when the earthquake shattered the prison-house 



CH. I. Causes leadi?tg to the Crusades. 3 

of his sepulchre. For them the whole land had been 
rendered holy by the tread of his sacred feet : and the 
pilgrim who had traced the scenes of his life from his 
cradle at Bethlehem to the spot of his ascent from Olivet, 
might sing the Nunc dimittis, as having with his own eyes 
seen the divine salvation. 

Thus the crusade preached by Peter the Hermit, and 
solemnly sanctioned by Pope Urban, was rendered pos- 
sible by the combination of papal authority , , 

.,. ., .. Absence of 

with an irresistible popular conviction. That local feeling 

1 .1 •. ^1 1, r in the earliest 

papal authority was the necessary result of christian 
the old imperial tradition of Rome; the ^""aditions. 
popular conviction was the growth of a tendency which 
had characterized every religion professed by Aryan or 
Semitic nations ; and both these causes were wholly un- 
connected with the teaching of Christ and of his dis- 
ciples, as it is set before us in the New Testament. Far 
from ascribing special sanctity to any one spot over 
another, the emphatic declaration that the hour was 
come in which men should worship the Father not 
merely in Jerusalem or on the Samaritan mountain, 
proclaimed a gospel Vhich taught that all men in all 
places are alike near to God in whom they live, move, 
and have their being. If we turn to the narrative which 
relates the Acts of the Apostles, we shall find not a sign 
of the feeling which regards Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or 
Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, or the banks of the Jordan, 
as places which of themselves should awaken any enthu- 
siastic or passionate feeling. The thoughts of the disciples, 
if we confine ourselves to this record, were absorbed with 
more immediate and momentous concerns. Before their 
generation should pass away, the Son of Man would re- 
turn to judgment, and the dead should be summoned 
from their graves to his awful tribunal. Hence any 



4 The Crusades. CH. i. 

vehement longing for one spot of earth over another 
was wretchedly out of place for those who held that the 
time was short, and that it behooved those who had wives 
to be as though they had none, those that bought as 
though they possessed not, and those that wept and re- 
joiced as though they wept and rejoiced not. Nay, 
more, with a feeling almost approaching to impatience, 
the great apostle of the Gentiles could put aside the 
yearnings of a weaker sentiment and declare that 
although he had known Christ in the flesh, yet hence- 
forth he would so know Him no more. 

The image, therefore, of the great founder of Chris- 
tianity was for him purely spiritual. In the letters which 
^, „, . . he wrote to the churches formed by his con- 

Ihe Lhristi- _ _ •' 

anityofSt. vcrts there is not a sign that the thought or 

Paul 

the sight of Bethlehem or Nazareth would 
awaken in him any deeper feeling than places wholly 
destitute of historical associations. If he speaks of Jeru- 
salem, he never implies that it had for him any special 
sanctity. His mission was to preach a faith altogether 
independent of time and place, and not only not need- 
ing but even rejecting the sensuous\id afforded by visible 
memorials of the Master whom he loved. 

Such was the Christianity of St. Paul ; and with such 
weapons it went forth to assail and throw down the 
The Chnsti- strongholds of heathenism. Three centuries 
anity of the later we behold Christianity dominant as the 

Koman ^ _ 

Emph-e. religion of the Roman Empire ; but in its 

outward aspect and in its practical working it has under- 
gone a vast and significant change. It cannot be sup- 
posed that this change was wrought at once by the mere 
fact of its recognition by the temporal power. The 
endless debates, which fill the history of early Chris- 
tianity, on the relations of the Persons of the Trinity and 



CH. I. Causes leading to the Crusades, 



ii 



on the mystery of the Incarnation, may in some degree 
have helped to fix the minds of men on the land where 
the Saviour had lived, and on the several scenes of his 
ministry ; but this alone would never have sufficed to 
work the revolution which Christianity has manifestly 
undergone, even before we reach the age of Constan- 
tine. The victory won over heathenism, if not merely 
nominal, was at best partial. The religion of the empire 
knew nothing of the One Eternal God, who demands 
from all men a spontaneous submission to his righteous 
law, and bids them find their highest good in his divine 
love. That religion rested on the might of the Capitoline 
Jupiter and the visible majesty of the Emperor ; but the 
real influences which were at work from the first to 
modify the Christianity of St. Paul lay in the lower strata 
of society, in the modes of thought and feeling prevalent 
among the masses who furnished the converts of the first 
two or three centuries. In these converts we cannot 
doubt that there was wrought a real change, — a change 
manifest chiefly in the conviction that the divine law is 
binding on all, and that the state of things in the Roman 
world was unspeakably shameful. In the Jesus whom 
Paul preached they beheld the righteous teacher who 
condemned the iniquities of godless rulers and a cor- 
rupt people, the avenger of their unjust deeds, the loving 
Redeemer in whose arms the weary and heavy-laden 
might find rest, the awful Judge who should be seen at 
the end of the world on his great white throne, with all 
the kindreds of mankind awaiting their doom before 
Him. The personal human love thus kindled in them 
turned only into a different channel thoughts and feel- 
ings which it would need centuries to root out. 

These thoughts and feelings had been fed by that ten- 
dency to localize incidents in the supposed history of 



6 The Crusades. CH. i. 

ffods or heroes which is the most prominent 

Localism of °, ...,,,, ,. . , 

heathen rell- characteristic 01 all heathen religions ; and 

^"^"^" of the vast crowd of these heathen religions 

or superstitions there was, if we may trust the statements 
of Roman writers, scarcely one which had not its ad- 
herents and votaries at Rome. Here were gathered the 
priests and worshippers of the Egyptian Isis, the virgin 
mother of Osiris, the god who rose again after his cruci- 
fixion to gladden the earth with his splendour ; here 
might be seen the adorers of the Persian sun-god Mi- 
thras, born at the winter solstice, and growing in strength 
until he wins his victory over the powers of darkness 
after the vernal equinox. But this idea of the death and 
resurrection of the lord of light was no new importation 
brought in by the theology of Egypt or Persia. The 
story of the Egyptian Osiris was repeated in the Greek 
stories of Sarpedon and Memnon, of Tithonos and As- 
klepios (iEsculapius), of the Teutonic Baldur and Woden 
(Odin). The birthplace of these deities, the scenes as- 
sociated with their traditional exploits, became holy 
spots, each with its own consecrating legends, and not a 
few attracting to themselves vast gatherings of pilgrims. 
It was not wonderful therefore that the worshippers of 
these or other like gods should, on professing the faith 
of Christ, carry with them all that they could 
thes'f S%e-^ retain of their old belief without utterly con- 
ligions on tradicting" the new ; that his nativity should 

Christianity. ° , •' 

be celebrated at the time when the sun 
begins to rise in the heavens, and his resurrection when 
the victory of light over darkness is achieved in the 
spring. The worshipper of the Egyptian Amoun, the 
ram, carried his old associations with him when he be- 
came a follower of the Lamb of God ; and the burst of 
light which heralded the return of the Maiden to the 



CH. I. Causes leading to the Crusades, 7 

Mourning Mother in the Greek mysteries of Eleusis was 
reproduced in the miracle still repeated year by year by 
the patriarch of Jerusalem when he announces the de- 
scent of the sacred fire in the sepulchre of Christ. 

Thus for the Christians of the third century, if not of 
the second, Judaea or Palestine became a holy land ; and 
with the growth of devotion to the human 

r r^-i • . i-u r 1- r Growth of local 

person of Christ grew the feelmg of reve- associations in 
rence for every place which He had visited ^^es"'^^- 
and every memorial which He had left behind Him. 
The impulse once given soon became irresistible. Every 
incident of the gospel narratives was associated with 
some particular spot, and the certainty of the verification 
was never questioned by the thousands who felt that the 
sight of these places brought them nearer to heaven and 
was in itself a purification of their souls. They could 
follow the Redeemer from the cave in which He was 
born and where the Wise Men of the East laid before 
Him their royal offerings, to the mount from which He 
uttered his blessings on the pure, the merciful, and the 
peacemakers, and thence to the other mount on which 
He offered his perfect sacrifice for the sins of the whole 
world. The spots associated with his passion, his burial, 
his resurrection, called forth emotions of passionate ven- 
eration which were intensified by the alleged discovery 
of the cross on which He had suffered, together with the 
two crosses on which the thieves had been condemned 
to die. If the presence of the tablet containing the title 
inscribed by Pontius Pilate still left it uncertain to which 
of the crosses that tablet belonged, and to which there- 
fore the homage of the faithful should be paid, all doubt 
was removed when a woman at the point of death on 
whom the touch of two of these crosses had no effect was 
restored to strength and youth by the touch of the third. 



8 The Crusades. ch. i. 

The splendid churches raised by the devout zeal of 
Constantine and his mother Helena over the 

Growth of pil- j_ •!-> ,1 1 1 11 11 

grimage to the cavc at Bethlehem and the sepulchre at 
Palestm^e'i^^ °^ Jerusalem became for the Christians that 
which the sacred stone at Mecca and the 
tomb of the prophet at Medina became afterwards for 
the followers of Islam ; nor can we be surprised if the 
emperor whose previous life had been marked by special 
devotion to the Greek and Roman sun-god transferred 
the characteristics of Apollon (Apollo) to the meek and 
merciful Jesus whose teaching to the last he utterly mis- 
apprehended. The purpose which drew to Palestine the 
long lines of pilgrims, which each year increased in 
numbers, was not the mere aimless love of wandering 
which is supposed to furnish the motive for Tartar pil- 
grimages in our own as in former ages. The Aryan, so 
far as we know, was never a nomadic race ; but we can 
understand the eagerness even of a stationary population 
to undertake a long and dangerous journey, if the mere 
making of it should insure the remission of their sins. 
Nothing less than this was the pilgrim led to expect, who 
had traversed land and sea to bathe in the Jordan and 
offer up his prayers at the birthplace and tomb .of his 
Master. A few men, of keener discernment and wider 
culture, might see the mischiefs lurking in this belief, 
£ind protest against the superstition. Augustine, the 
great doctor whose ' Confessions ' have made his name 
familiar to thousands who know nothing of his life or 
teaching, might bid Christians remember that righteous- 
ness was not to be sought in the East nor mercy in the 
West, and that voyages are useless to carry us to Him 
with whom a hearty faith makes us immediately present. 
In these protests he might be upheld by fnen like Gre- 
gory of Nyssa and Jerome ; but Jerome, while he dwelt 



CH. I. Causes leading: to the Crusades. 



in 



on the uselessness of pilgrimage , and the absurdity of 
supposing that prayers offered in one place could be 
more acceptable than the same prayers offered in an- 
other, took up his abode in a cave at Bethlehem, and 
there discoursed to Roman ladies, who had crossed the 
sea to listen to his splendid eloquence. Heaven, he in- 
sisted, was as accessible from Britain as from Palestine : 
but his actions contradicted his words, and his example 
exercised a more potent influence than his precept. The 
purely spiritual faith on which Jerome laid stress was as 
much beyond the spirit of the age as the ^ , , , 

^ _ '- ^ _ Gradual decay 

moral feelings of a later age were behind of spiritual 
those of the woman who in the crusade of ^^ ^s^°"- 
St. Louis was seen carrying in her right hand a porringer 
of fire, and in her left a bottle of water. With the fire 
she wished, as Joinville tells us, to burn paradise, with 
the water to drown hell, so that none might do good for 
the reward of the one, nor avoid evil ffirom fear of the 
other, since every good ought to be done from the per- 
fect and sincere love which man owes to his Creator, 
who is the supreme good. Such a tone of thought was 
in ludicrous discord with the temper which brought 
Jerome himself to Bethlehem, and which soon began to 
fill the land with those who had nothing of Jerome's 
culture and the sobriety which in whatever degree must 
spring from it. 

The contagion spread. From almost every country 
of Europe wanderers took their way to Palestine, under 
the conviction that the shirt which they ^ 

^ Encourage- 

wore when they entered the holy city would, ment given to 
if laid by to be used as their winding-sheet, ^^ g"mages. 
convey them (like the carpet of Solomon in the Arabian 
tale) at once to heaven. An enterprise so laudable 
roused the sympathy and quiqkened the charity of the 



lo The Crusades. CH. i. 

faithful. The pilgrim seldom lacked food and shelter, 
and houses of repose or entertainment were raised for 
his comfort on the stages of his journey as well as in the 
city which was the goal of his pilgrimage. Here he 
was welcomed in the costly house which had been raised 
for his reception by the munificence of Pope Gregory 
the Great. If he died during his absence, his kinsfolk 
envied rather than bewailed his lot : if he returned, he 
had their reverence as one who had washed away his sins, 
and still more perhaps as one who had brought away in 
his wallet relics of value so vast and of virtue so great 
that the touch of them made the journey to Palestine 
almost a superfluous ceremony. Wherever these pilgrims 
Trade in went, these fragments of the true cross 

relics. might be found ; and the happy faith of 

those who gave in exchange for them more than their 
weight in gold never stopped to think that the barren 
log which was supposed to have produced them must in 
truth have spread abroad its branches wider than the 
most magnificent cedar in Libanus. Nor probably, 
even in the earliest ages, was the traffic consequent on 
these pilgrimages confined to holy things. The East 
^ . , . was not only the cradle of Christianity, but 

Stimulus given •' . . "^ 

by pilgrimages a land rich in spices and silks, m gold and 
with the jewels: and the keen-sighted merchant, 

■^^^'^" looking to solid profits on earth, followed 

closely on the steps of the devotee who sought his re- 
ward in heaven. 

The first interruption to the peaceful and prosperous 
fortunes of pilgrims and merchants was caused by one 
of the periodical ebbs and flows which for nearly seven 
hundred years had marked the struggle be- 
struggie be- twccn the powcr* of Persia and of Rome, 
and Persia. The kings of the restored Persian kingdom 



CH. I. Causes leading to the Crusades. ii 



"ii 



had striven to avenge on the West the wrongs com- 
mitted by Alexander the Great, if not those even of 
earlier invaders ; and the enterprise which Khosru 
Nushirvan had taken in hand was carried 

A. D. Oil. 

on forty years later by his grandson Khosru Capture of Je- 
(Chosroes) II. Almost at the outset of his Per^iln kmg,^ 
irresistible course Jerusalem fell, nor was it ^^°^^'^ ^^■ 
the fault of the Persians that the great churches of 
Helena and Constantine were not destroyed utterly by 
fire. Ninety thousand Christians, it is said, were put to 
death : but, according to the feeling of the age, a greater 
loss was sustained in the carrying off of the true cross 
into Persia. From Palestine the wave of Persian conquest 
spread southward into Egypt, and the great- . 
ness of Khosru seemed to be unbounded, invasion of 
when from an unknown citizen of Mecca he 
received the bidding to acknowledge the unity of the 
Godhead and to own Mahomet as the prophet of God. 
The Persian king tore the letter to pieces, and the man 
of Mecca, whose successors were to carry the crescent to 
Jerusalem and Damascus, to the banks of the Nile and 
the mountains of Spain, warned him that his kingdom 
should be treated as he had treated his letter. 

For the present the signs of this catastrophe were not 
to be seen. The Roman emperor was compelled to sign 
an ignominious peace and to pay a yearly Campaigns 
tribute to the sovereign of Persia. But Hera- ?f'^^ 

o iLmperor 

clius (Herakleios) woke suddenly from the Heraciius. 
sluggishness which marked the earlier years of his reign. 
The Persians were defeated among the defiles 
of Mount Taurus, and the destruction of the 
birthplace of Zoroaster offered some com- 

. . . A. D. 627. 

pensation for the mischief done to the Battle of 
churches of Helena and Constantine. Two 



12 The Crusades. 

years later the Roman emperor carried his arms into the 
heart of the enemy's land ; and during the battle of Nine- 
veh, in which he won a splendid victory, he slew with his 
own hands the Persian general Rhazates. Khosru fled 
across the Tigris ; but he could not escape from the plots 
of his son, and his death in a dungeon ended the glories 
of the Sassanid dynasty, under whom the Persian power 
had, in the third century of our era, revived from the death 
sleep into which it had sunk after the conquests of Alex- 
ander. 

With Siroes, the son and murderer of Khosru, the 

Roman emperor concluded a peace which not merely 

delivered all his subjects from captivity, but 

repaired the loss which the church of the 

Holy Sepulchre had sustained by the theft of the true 

cross. The great object of pilgrimage was 

Restoration ^ ■' , , . , '^-.-. 

of the true thus restored to Jerusalem, and thither Hera- 

PerTiai^.*^ ^ clius (Hcrakleios) during the following year 

, betook himself to pay his vows of thanks- 

A. D. 629. . 

Pilgrimage giving. With the pageant which marked this 

ofHeraclius , , , r i • 

tojeru- ceremony the splendour of his reign was 

saiem. closcd. Before his death the followers of 

Mahomed had deprived him of the provinces which he 
had wrested from the Persians. 

Eight years only had passed after the visit of Hera- 
clius (Herakleios) to Jerusalem, when the armies which 
A. D. 637. had already seized Damascus advanced to 

pSS by the siege of the Holy City. A blockade of 
Omar. four mouths convinced the patriarch Sophro- 

nios that there was no hope of withstanding the force of 
Islam : but he demanded the presence of the caliph him- 
self at the ratification of the treaty which was to secure a 
second sacred capital to the disciples of the Prophet. 
After some debate his request was granted ; and Omar, 



637- Causes leading to the Crusades. 13 

who on the death of Abubekr had been chosen as the 
vicegerent of Mahomed, set out from Medina on a camel, 
which carried for him his leathern water-bottle, his bags 
of corn and dates, and his wooden dish. 

The terms imposed by the caliph sufficiently marked 
the subjection of the Christians, but they imposed no 
severe hardships and perhaps showed a large Terms of the 
toleration. The Christians were to build no by Om™^ ^ 
new churches, and they were to admit Maho- Christians of 
medans into those which they already had, Jerusalem. 
whether by day or by night. The cross was no longer to 
be seen on the exterior of their buildings or to be paraded 
in the streets. The church-bells should be tolled only, 
not rung. The use of saddles and of weapons was alto- 
gether interdicted, and the Christians, distinguished from 
their conquerors by their attire, were to show their respect 
for the latter by rising up to them if they were sitting. 
On these conditions the Christians were not only to be 
safe in their persons and fortunes, but undisturbed in the 
exercise of their religion and in the use of their churches. 

For the observance of this last stipulation the rugged 
and uncouth conqueror showed a greater care than the 
patriarch who regarded his presence in the _ , , 

1 1 r 1 T-. • 1 • Omar and the 

church of the Resurrection as the abomma- patriarch So- 
tion of desolation in the holy place. The ^ 
hour of prayer came, and Omar asked Sophronios where 
he might offer his devotions. ' Here,' answered the pa- 
triarch ; but Omar positively refused, and repeated his 
refusal when he was led away into the church of Con- 
stantine. At last he knelt down on the steps outside 
that church, and afterwards told the patriarch that had 
he worshipped within the building, the document secur- 
ing its use to the Christians would have been worthless. 
His words were verified by the zeal of his followers, who 



14* The Crusades. CH. i. 

insisted on inclosing within a mosque the steps on which 
he had prayed : but the mosque which bears Omar's 
name rose over the great sacrificial altar of the temple, 
which passed for Jacob's stone. 

This second conquest may have again checked the 

rush of pilgrims to the Holy Land ; but the difficulties 

which it placed in their way only added to 

bian^'^conquest the glory and the benefits of the enterprise : 

on pilgrimage ^tnd, after all, the victory of Omar did little 

to Jerusalem. ' ' -' _ 

more than share the holy city between two 
races each of which acknowledged its sanctity and reve- 
renced the relics of the righteous men whose bodies re- 
posed beneath its sacred soil. Nor had the Christians 
any stronger ground of complaint than that the Saviour 
whom they worshipped was regarded by their conquer- 
ors as a prophet only inferior, if not equal, to the founder 
of Islam. 

Nearly four centuries had passed away after the sub- 
mission of Sophronios to Omar ; and during this long 
series of generations the West had without 

Uninterrupted i • i r i • r -i 

continuance of let or hindrance sent forth its troops of pii- 
pi gnmage. gnms, in whose train merchants may have 
found sources of profit for more worldly callings. If the 
palmy days during which the wanderers might regard 
themselves as practically lords of the land through which 
they travelled had passed away, they underwent at the 
worst nothing which could greatly excite their anger or 
rouse the indignation of Christendom. 

Nor was this state of things materially 

A. D. lOIO. . , 

Ravages of the changed by the furious onslaught of Hakem, 
tan^n'akem "in the mad Fatimite sultan of Egypt, when, 
Jerusalem. spurred on by a bigotry unknown to his 
predecessors, he resolved to destroy the Christian sanc- 
tuary in Jerusalem. The rule of these earlier sovereigns 



loio. Causes leading to the Crusades. 15 

of Egypt had been more beneficial to the Christians than 
that of the Abbasside caliphs of Bagdad. But Hakem 
cared nothing for the worldly interests of his kingdom or 
of the profits to be derived from trade with the unbe- 
liever ; and his soldiers were busied on the dignified task 
of demolishing the church of the Resurrection, and in 
attempts to destroy with their hammers the very cave in 
which, as it was supposed, the body of the Saviour had 
been laid. In this task they had but a very partial suc- 
cess, and to Hakem probably the suspension for a single 
year of the descent of the sacred fire scarcely outweighed 
the risks of a combined attack from the maritime powers 
of Christendom. For the present no such alliance was 
threatened ; but a cruel persecution of the 
Jews in many Christian cities was a symp- jewsTnEurope^ 
tom of the temper which was placing a great 
gulf between men who professed nevertheless to wor- 
ship the same Almighty Father. 

After this violent but transient storm the condition of 
the pilgrims became much what it had been before, ex- 
cept that a toll was now levied on each pilgrim before 
he was suffered to enter the gates of Jeru- -pax levied 
salem ; but this impost may have been rather °" piignms 

^ r J at the gates 

welcomed than resented by the Christians, of Jerusalem. 
as it gave to the richer among them an opportunity of 
discharging it for their poorer brethren, and so of secur- 
ing for themselves a higher degree of merit. The world, 
too, seemed to have taken a new lease of existence, and 
everything appeared to promise a long continuance of 
comparative peace. Ten years before, all ^ ^ jo^g 
Christendom was fluttering with the expecta- o/'fh "^nd " f 
tion of immediate judgment. At the close ^^ world. 
of the millenium, which came to an end with the year 
1000, a belief almost universal looked forward to the 



^ 



1 6 The Crusades. ch. i. 

summons which would call the dead from their graves 
and cut short the course of a w^^^^nd sin-laden world. 
But the tale of y^^!Ml(f(fftftH the sun con- 

tinued to rise arffeet 'as^it^aorisen and set before, and 
the flood of pilgrims soon began to stream towards the 
East in greater volume than ever. Men of all ranks 
and classes left their homes to offer up their prayers at 
the tomb of Christ : bishops abandoned their dioceses, 
princes their dominions, to visit the scenes where the 
Redeemer had suffered and where He had achieved his 
triumph. More numerous, more earnest, more zealous 
than all, were the Franks or the Frenchmen, whose name 
became henceforth in the Eastith^ common designation 
of all Europeans. For the^|^|yMJ^nd inexperienced, 
for the women and the youtf^'wno pledged themselves 
to the enterprise, there might be special and grave 
dangers ; nor were the strongest assured against serious, 
if not fatal, disasters. With thirty horsemen fully 
equipped. Ingulf, a secretary of William the Conqueror, 
set out on his journey to the Holy Land. Of these 
twenty returned on foot, with no other possessions than 
their wallet and their staff. But their losses had been 
caused probably by no human enemies, and the men 
who had died could claim the credit of martyrdom only 
in the sense in which it is accorded to the Holy Inno- 
cents massacred by the decree of Hqrod. On the whole, 
the difficulties of the enterprise were as much smoothed 
down as in a rude and ill-governed age they 

A. D. 997. *=' _ t3 J 

Conversion of could Well be. The conversion of Hungary 
under^Kmg Opened a Safe highway across the heart of 
Stephen. Europe, and the pilgrims had a defender, as 

well as a friend, in St. Stephen, the apostle of his king- 
dom. 

But a change far greater than that which had been 



1076. Causes leading to the Cries ades. 17 

wrought by Omar was to be effected by a power which 
had been working its way from the distant East and 
menacing the existence of the Empire itself. . , 

^ Advance of 

From the deserts of Central Asia the Selju- the Seiju- 
kian Turks had advanced westwards, over- 
running the kingdoms of the Persian empire, and sub- 
jugating Asia Minor, the inheritance of the ^ u. 1092. 
Caesars of Rome. In this task they received P'^i^'r^ °^ 

-' the belju- 

no slight help from the neutrality of a great ^ian empire. 
part of the Christian population, in whom financial 
exactions and ecclesiastical tyranny had awakened feel- 
ings of strong discontent, if not of burning indignation. 
The rulers of Byzantium had, indeed, done all that they 
could to make the way smooth for the invaders. The 
accumulation of land in the hands of a few owners had 
dangerously diminished the number of inhabitants ; nor 
was it long before the Turks were in a majority through- 
out Cappadocia, Phrygia and Galatia, and were enabled 
successfully to resist the crusading hosts in countries 
which they had conquered but as yesterday. The Selju- 
kian sovereigns who had advanced thus far on the road 
to Constantinople, chose as their abode that city of Nice 
(Nikaia, Nicaea) in which the first general 
council of Christendom had defined the 
Catholic faith on the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. 
Here these fierce invaders proclaimed the mission of 
Mahomet as the prophet of God, and issued the decrees 
which assigned Christian churches to profanation or de- 
struction, and Christian youths and maidens to a dis- 
graceful and shameful slavery. Mountains visible from 
the dome of Sancta Sophia were already . , <. , 

^ . ■' Appeal of the 

within the borders of Turkish territory. The Greek Em- 
danger seemed imminent, and Alexios, the fo'western 
Emperor of the East, invoked the aid of Christendom, 

C 



1 8 The Crusades. ch. i. 

Latin Christendom : but the fire was not yet kindled, 
and for the time his appeal was made in vain. 

No long time, however, had passed before the Selju- 
kian Toucush was master of Jerusalem ; and the Chris- 
' tians learnt to their cost that servitude to 

Seijiikian con- the fierce Wanderers from the northern de- 
quest of Jeru- serts was very different from submission to 
the rugged and uncultured Omar. The law- 
ful toll levied on the pilgrims gave way before a system 
of extortion and violent robbery carried out 

Increased bur- 
dens and suf- m cvcry part of the land ; and the mere 

Chriftlan piu journey to Jerusalem involved dangers from 
gnms. which the bravest might well shrink. In- 

sults to the persons of the pilgrims were accompanied by 
insults, harder to be borne, offered to the holy places and 
to those who ministered in them. The sacred -offices 
were savagely interrupted, and the patriarch, dragged 
by his hair along the pavement, was thrown into a dun- 
geon, pending the payment of an exorbitant ransom. 
For the pilgrims themselves there might be dangers as 
they made their way through Europe : but these were 
increased tenfold on the eastern side of the Hellespont. 
Thus far they had journeyed in compara- 

Declineofcom- . i . i i . 

merce with the tive sccurity, and the merchants who sought 
^^^^" to combine profit with devotion added to 

that security by their numbers and their prudence. The 
Easter fair of Jerusalem had drawn to the ports of Pales- 
tine the fleets of Genoa and Pisa, and had sufficiently 
rewarded the munificence of the merchants of Amalfi, 
the founders of the hospital of St. John. But commerce 
has no liking for perils of flood and field : and with the 
risk of disaster these fleets disappeared and the caravans 
were confined to those for whom the sanctuary of Jeru- 
salem was a goal to be reached at all costs. These went 



1076-1095- 7 he Council of Clermont. 19 

forth still by hundreds ; they returned by tens or units to 
recount the miseries and wanton cruelties 

,.,,,,. , , Oppression of 

which they had undergone, and to draw the christians 
fearful pictures of the savage tyranny exer- °^ Palestine. 
cised over the Christians of Jerusalem and of the East 
generally. The church of Christ was in the iron grasp 
of the infidel, and the blood of his martyrs cried aloud 
for vengeance. Throughout the length and breadth of 
Christendom a fierce indignation was stirr- 
ing the hearts of men, and the pent-up waters nadon^ fek fa 
needed only guidance to rush forth as a Western Chns- 

•' ° tendom. 

flood over the lands defiled by the unbe- 
liever. But unless the enterprise was to run to waste in 
random efforts, it must have the solemn sanction of reli- 
gion. The people might be ready, but popular fury act- 
ing by itself will soon spend its strength like the hurry- 
ing tempest. Princes might be willing for a time to 
abandon their dominions : but the pressure of difficulties 
abroad and at home would soon make them grow weary 
of the task. There must be a constraining power to 
keep them to their vows by sanctions which ^, 

^ Need of a reli- 

stretched beyond the present life to the life gious sanction 
after death ; and these sanctions could come direct this feel- 
only from him who held the keys of the ^"^' 
kingdom of heaven, and whose seat was the rock of 
Peter, Prince of the Apostles. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT. 

The Pope is the bishop of Rome, and the traditions of 
the papacy delight in recalling the humble origin of his 



20 The Crusades. CH. ii. 

vast monarchy, at once spiritual and tempo- 
Influence of , .... ,1 ^ - , 
Roman im- ral, ecclesiastical and secular. If the poor 

fhe'early °" Galilasan fisherman ever entered the Eter- 

popes. j^g^j City, it was as a stranger who had come 

to be the guide and friend of a small knot of men who 

saw and hated and wished to keep themselves aloof 

from the abominable corruption of Roman society. But 

if Christianity itself, as we have seen (p. 6), was, when 

it had once taken root in the West, modified by the 

popular feelings and old associations of the converts, the 

constitution of the church was in like manner insensibly 

modified by the political forms of the state with which it 

had at first to wage a terrible conflict. Rome was not as 

other cities : and the bishop of Rome could not long 

remain like the presidents of other churches. He was 

dealing with the subjects, and he lived in the heart, of 

the empire. It was inevitable that the imperial tradition 

should fasten on the object of their worship ; nor was it 

long before the exulting cry went up to heaven, Christ 

lives, Christ rules, Christ is emperor (Christus vivit, 

Christus regnat, Christus imperat). 

As the vicars of this invisible emperor, the popes 

acquired gradually a power which overshadowed that of 

the mightiest sovereigns. It was exercised 

A. D. 587-604. . , ^ . ^ . . ^ , 

With monastic austerity by Gregory the 
Great ; it was wielded with the ability of a consummate 
general by Gregory VII., Hildebrand. The 
first Gregory was a monk, therefore also a 
Manichean ; in other words, one who believed in the 
essential impurity of all matter ; but this philosophy, if 
it had any attractions for Gregory VII., was wholly sub- 
ordinate to the one absorbing passion of ecclesiastical 
dominion. His aim was to subdue the world by a 
spiritual army : but the issue of his conquest was not to 



1073-10^5* '^^^ Council of Clermont. 21 

be confined to spiritual influence. It was to give him 
power over kingdoms, dictation over princes, the com- 
mand of their weapons and their wealth. It was to 
humble civil polity under priestly autocracy ; it was to 
prove, what Hildebrand scrupled not to assert, that the 
civil rule was in itself the mere development and work- 
ing of the evil principle. The foundations had long 
been laid ; but Hildebrand left to his successors not 
much to do towards completing the fabric of papal 
empire. His predecessors had learnt to avail themselves 
dexterously of popular feeling or the ambition of princes, 
to direct wide-spread movements, if not to create them. 
It was the papal sanction which had aided to depose the 
degenerate Merovingian ; it was the papal chrism which 
had anointed the first Carolingian king. It was the dia- 
dem of the ancieni Caesars, bestowed by the hand of 
Leo III., which rested on the head of Charles the Great. 
It was Hildebrand himself, who, by the hands of his 
instrument, Alexander II., had transferred the crown of 
England from the son of Godwine to William the Bastard 
of Normandy. It has been well remarked, that although 
the name had not yet been heard, yet in truth it was 
now that the first crusade was preached, and it was 
prfeached by the voice of Rome against the liberties of 
England. We may note further that the preacher was a 
pontiff, who, when he found it convenient to thank the 
Sultan of Morocco for some indulgences granted to 
Christians in his territories, could • assure that infidel 
ruler that both worshipped the same God and held the 
same faith, though their modes of worship and their 
expressions of devotion might be different. 

The popes had become capable of setting vast armies 
in motion, and of raising to a white heat the fire of a 
popular sentiment which had already been kindled. 



2 2 TJie Crusades. ch. ii. 

„ , , These two conditions were needed before the 

bchemes and 

motives of power of Europe could be precipitated on 
regory . ^^^ infidel conquerors of Syria ; and the in- 
ability of the popes to accomplish this end if they were 
not in accord with the prevalent feeling of the people is 
strikingly shown in the history of Gregory VII. Eight 
years after he had helped to slay Harold at Hastings, 
A. D. 1074. Hildebrand addressed a letter to all who 
ktte?'to thT loved and cared to defend the Catholic faith, 
faithful. beseeching them to put aside all other tasks 

in favour of the great work of chasing the hordes of the 
Seljukian Turks beyond the bounds of the Eastern em- 
pire. Constantinople, the new city of the Seven Hills, 
was even now threatened by these barbarians ; nor could 
any say how soon the danger might not menace Rome 
itself. It could not be doubted that the faith, the energy, 
the warlike skill of Christendom would sweep away these 
undisciplined unbelievers ; and the victory of the faithful 
would be followed by very solid gain to the popes. The 
price to be paid by the emperor for his deliverance from 
the Turks was his submission as a vassal to the see of 
Rome ; in other words, the pope was to become absolute 
lord both of East and West, and the claims of the Byzan- 
tine patriarch to a co-ordinate dignity with the successor 
of St. Peter should no longer be made with impunity. 
But although the scheme thus carefully drawn out was 
to promote the interests of a spiritual power, for the great 
mass of Latin Christians it was purely a political enter- 
prise. The fears and distresses of the Eastern emperor 
could excite no sympathy ; the Caesar of Constantinople 
was not a being who had exhibited the image of super- 
human love or shed his blood for those who had taken 
delight in torturing him ; and the excommunication which 
Hildebrand had imprudently hurled against the emperor 



1 081-1085. The Council of Clermont. 23 

Nicephorus (Nikephoros) III., had left behind it in the 
East a feehng not favourable to the designs of the Roman 
pontiff. The letter of Hildebrand appealed to no religious 
associations ; it said nothing of abominations committed 
in the holy places, of terrible crimes wrought on the per- 
sons of faithful pilgrims ; it was silent about the eternal 
reward which the bare act of pilgrimage would win for 
the believer. It was of little use to say in passing that 
more than 50,000 warriors longed to rise up under his 
guidance against the enemies of God and reach the se- 
pulchre of their Lord. He had not struck the right chord, 
and Hildebrand failed to see the West gird itself for the 
great conflict with the enemies of the faith. 

For a time he may have supposed that the great fire 
was already kindled, when with a fleet of 1 50 ships and 
an army of 30,000 men Robert Guiscard set a. d. 1081. 
sail from Brundusium (Brindisi). But the mans^n^' 
conqueror who had done so much in Italy I'^a^y- 
was to do but little to the east of the Adriatic. While 
his army put forth its whole strength before the walls of 
Dyrrhachium (Durazzo),his fleet under the command of 
his son Bohemond was miserably defeated ; and nothing 
but the wretched jealousy felt by the emperor Alexios for 
his general Paleologos saved the army of Guiscard from 
ruin and turned the threatened disaster into victory. 
When, being compelled to return to Italy, he 
left Bohemond to carry on his enterprise, the 
latter overran Epeiros and had well nigh succeeded in 
reducing the Thessalian Larissa, when he 

1 T 1 r A. D. 1083. 

too was compelled to hasten to Italy tor 
reinforcements both in men and money. In his absence 
his deputy, Brienne, the constable of Apulia, was con- 
strained to abandon the siege of Kastoria and 

. . A. D. 1085. 

to bmd himself not to invade agam the tern- 



24 Th^ Crusades. CH. ii. 

tories of the Byzantine emperor. Not many months later 
Robert Guiscard gathered another armament for the con- 
quest of the East. He raised the siege of Corfu (Kor- 
kyra), and had reached Cefalonia (Kephallenia), when 
his career was cut short by death and his scheme for the 
time seemed utterly brought to naught. The war which 
riildebrand sought to stir up against the Mahomedan 
powers was not less vigorously preached by his successor 
Victor III., who promised remission of sins 
A. D. lo 7. ^^ ^ ^ff\\Q might engage in it ; but his words 
called forth no bands of warriors for the recovery of Jeru- 
salem. The fleets of Genoa and Pisa swept the African 
coasts, and gained in the shape of booty a harvest which 
was to fall to the lot of few among the myriads who were 
soon to leave their homes for the Holy Land. 

Ten years after the death of Hildebrand three or four 

thousand of the clergy and thirty thousand laymen were 

gathered to meet pope Urban II. at the 

A. D. 1095. '^ / 

Council ofPia- council of Piaccnza (Placentia). So vast a 
throng could find standing ground in no 
building, and the business of the council was transacted 
in the plain outside the city. The envoys of the Eastern 
emperor, Alexios Comnenos, were there to plead his dis- 
tresses and beseech the strenuous aid of the faithful. 
The policy of checking the progress of the Turks while 
they were still at a good distance from Italy may have 
influenced the more statesmanlike of their hearers ; the 
more vehement and enthusiastic among them were 
moved to tears by the pathetic recital of the Byzantine 
ambassadors, and demanded loudly to be led against the 
enemy. But Urban, with his heart more determinately 
set upon the enterprise than any man present, felt that 
the hour for the supreme decision had not yet come. 
He was in a country torn by intestine divisions, where 



io95« The Coimcil of Clermont, 25 

his own claim to the papacy was disputed by an anti-pope 
whom with his adherents it was here his especial busi- 
ness to excommunicate. He had to deal with other 
matters also. Some of the clergy still refused to aban- 
don their wives ; and the wife of the emperor Henry IV. 
was present to complain of treatment unimaginably mon- 
strous on the part of her husband. Both emperor and 
clergy must be condemned, and brought into obedience ; 
and Urban felt that after such business as this it would 
be well to reserve his eloquence for another scene. He 
therefore dismissed the envoys of Alexios with the assur- 
ance that when the hosts of Western Christendom ad- 
vanced to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre they would 
not forget that they had work to do near Constantinople. 
From Piacenza Urban made his way across the Alps 
to the realm of the great Charles, whose intercourse with 
the ambassadors of the Caliph Harun-al- 

A. D. 799. 

Reschid may have laid the foundation for 
the myth, expanded into a systematic fiction in the lying 
Chronicle of Turpin, that he had himself smitten ^own 
the unbelievers under the shadow of the Church of Con- 
stantine. On the northern side of the Alps Urban could 
breathe more freely. The sentence of excommunication 
was impending, it is true, over Philip the First, who called 
himself or was called King of France ; but the great- 
grandson of Hugh Capet, powerful though he might be 
within his own dominion of Paris and Orleans, was little 
more than nominal lord of the vast throng _, 

A. D. 1095. Ihe 

of feudal chiefs who lay beyond its borders, council of Cler- 
From his old home in the great monastery 
of Clugny, Urban set off in the autumn for Clermont in 
the territories of the Count of Auvergne. Before he 
could reach the city, thousands of tents were pitched 
without the walls for those who could find no shelter 



26 The Crusades. ch. ii. 

within them ; and the eight days during which the 
council held its sessions were spent in regulating the en- 
terprise about which the pope had spoken with so much 
reserve at Piacenza, and in prescribing the measures to 
be taken for the, safety of those who might remain at 
home during the absence of their natural protectors. 

There was now no more need for hesitation. Popular 
feeling to the north of the Alps was far more deeply 
Pilgrimage of ^loved by the woes of the pilgrims and the 
Peti'r''t™''' conquests of the infidels than on the southern 
Jerusalem. side of the great mountain barriers ; and the 
wrath of the people had been fanned into an ungovern- 
able flame by the preaching of the hermit Peter. This 
man, born at Amiens in Picardy, had forsaken his wife 
and laid aside the sword which he wielded in the service 
of the Counts of Boulogne, to follow the council of per- 
fection in silence and solitude. Like others, he felt him- 
self drawn by an irresistible attraction to 

A. D. 1093. . •' 

the Holy Land; but if his passionate yearn- 
ings were rewarded by the privilege of offering up his 
prayers before the tomb of the Redeemer, his very heart 
was stirred by the sight of things, the mere recital of 
which had awakened his wrath at a distance. The 
Sanctuary was in the hands of the infidels ; the patriarch 
was reduced practically to the state of a slave, and the 
pilgrim was happy who returned from the Holy City 
without undergoing humiliations and bufifetings scarcely 
deserved by the worst of criminals. The murder of 
many Christian men, the deadly wrongs done to many 
Christian women, called aloud for vengeance, and the 
hermit made his vow that, with the help of God, these 
things should cease. His conversations with the patri- 
arch Simeon brought out only confessions of the inca- 
pacity of the Greek Emperor and the weakness of his 



io94« The Council of Clermont. 27 

empire. ' The nations of the West shall take up arms 
in your cause,' said the hermit ; and with the patriarchal 
benediction Peter hastened to obtain for the mission 
which he now saw before him the sanction of the man 
who claimed to be at the head of Eastern and Western 
Christendom alike. 

Before the Roman pontiff Peter poured forth his story 
of the wrongs which called for immediate redress ; but 
no eloquence was needed to stir the heart of 

A. D. 1094. 

Urban. The zeal of the pope was probably The mission 
as sincere as that of any others who engaged of the her- 
in the enterprise ; but it could not fail to ^^'^• 
derive strength from the consciousness that, whatever 
might be the result to the warriors of the cross, his own 
power would rest henceforth on more solid foundations. 
His blessing was therefore eagerly bestowed on the fer- 
vent enthusiast who undertook to go through the length 
and breadth of the land, stirring up the people to the 
great work for the love of God and of their own souls. 
His eloquence may have been as rude as it was ready ; 
but its deficiencies were more than made up by the 
earnestness which gave even to the glance of his eye a 
force more powerful than speech. Dwarfish in stature 
and mean in person, he was yet filled with a fire which 
would not stay, and the horrors which were burnt in 
upon his soul were those which would most surely stir 
the conscience and rouse the wrath of his hearers. His 
fiery appeals carried everything before them. Wherever 
he went, rich and poor, aged and young, the knight and 
the peasant, thronged round the emaciated stranger, 
who with his head and feet bare rode on his ass, carry- 
ing a huge crucifix. That form, of which they beheld 
the bleeding sign, he had himself seen ; nay, he had re- 
ceived from the Saviour a letter which had fallen down 



28 Tiie Crusades. CH. ii. 

from heaven. He appealed to every feeling which may- 
stir the heart of mankind generally, to every motive 
which should have special power with all faithful Chris- 
tians, He called upon them for the deliverance of the 
land which was the cradle of their faith, for the punish- 
ment of the barbarian who had dared to defile it, for the 
rescue of the brethren who were the victims of his 
tyranny. The vehemence which choked his own utter- 
ance became contagious : his sobs and groans called 
forth the tears and cries of the vast crowds who hung 
upon his words, and who greedily devoured the harrow- 
ing accounts of the pilgrims whom Peter brought forward 
as witnesses to the truth of his picture. Motives more 
earthly may have mingled with his austere call in the 
minds of some who heard him. Of these motives the 
hermit said nothing : but there is no doubt that he made 
his last and most constraining appeal to that notion of 
mechanical religion which the prophet Micah puts into 
the mouth of Balak the king of Moab. The consciences 
of some amongst his hearers might be weighed down by 
the burden of sins too grievous almost for forgiveness. 
He besought them to remember that such fears were 
altogether misplaced, if only they made up their minds 
to take part in the redemption of the Holy Land. If 
they chose to become the soldiers of the cross, their sal- 
vation was at once achieved. There was no sin, however 
fearful, which would not be cancelled by the mere taking 
of the vow ; no sinful habits which would not be condoned 
in those who might fall in battle with the unbelievers. 
The excitement of the moment, the frenzy which, having 
first unsettled the mind of the hermit, was by him com- 
municated to his hearers, threw, we cannot doubt, a 
specious colouring over a degrading morality and a 
hopelessly corrupting religion ; but as little can we doubt 



I095- The Council of Clermont. 29 

that the whole temper which stirred up and kept aHve 
the enterprise left behind it a poisoned atmosphere 
which could be cleared only by the storms and tempests 
of the reformation. 

The preaching of the hermit predetermined the results 
of the council of Clermont ; but Urban and the throng 
of bishops and abbots who were gathered Decrees of the 
round him were well aware that something council of cier- 

° mont, prohibit- 
more was needed than the enlisting of an ing private 

army of zealots for distant warfare. With firming the 
our settled laws and orderly government it Truce of God. 
is almost impossible for us to realize the condition even 
of the most advanced states of Christian Europe in an 
age when the power of the king over his vassals meant 
simply that which the strength or the weakness of the 
vassals made it, and when the vassal, if he owed alle- 
giance to his lord, was bound by no ties to his fellow 
vassals. The system of feudalism could not fail to feed 
the worst passions of human nature ; and the absence 
of an authority capable of constraining all alike involved 
for those who felt or fancied themselves aggrieved an 
irresistible temptation to take the law into their own 
hands. But the practice of private war thus set up 
would sooner pr later assume the form of a trade, and in 
the words of William of Malmesbury things had now 
come to so wretched a pass that feudal chiefs would take 
each other captive on little or no pretence, and would 
set their prisoners free only on the payment of an enor- 
mous ransom. This military violence of the laity was 
accompanied by corruption on the part of the clergy, 
showing itself in a shameless traffic of benefices and 
dignities which, in brief phrase, fell to the lot of the 
highest bidder. In such a condition of things to drain 
off to distant lands a large proportion of the men who at 



30 The Crusades. ch. ii. 

home might do something to check, if not to repress, the 
mischief, would be to leave those who remained behind 
defenceless. Decrees were therefore passed condemning 
private wars, confirming the Truce of God which sus- 
pended all hostilities during four days of each week, and 
placing the women and the clergy under the protection 
of the Church, which in an especial manner was ex- 
tended to merchants and husbandmen for three years. 

When, the business of the council being ended, Urban 
ascended a lofty scaffold and began his address to the 
people, he spoke to hearers for whom argu- 
ban II. before ments Were no longer needed, but who were 
e peop e. yf^^ plcascd to hear from the chief of Chris- 
tendom words which carried with them comfort and en- 
couragement. Three forms or versions of this speech 
have been preserved to us ; one in the pages of William 
of Tyre, a second in those of William of Malmesbury, a 
third from a manuscript in the Vatican. It is possible 
that they may represent three different speeches : but the 
substance of all is the same, and we are left in no doubt 
of the general tenor of his words. With some incon- 
sistency he dwelt on the cowardice of the barbarians who 
had contrived to conquer Syria and whose tyranny called 
forth the appeal which he now made to them. The Turk, 
shrinking from close encounters, trusted to his bow and 
arrow ; and the venom of his poisoned shaft, not the 
bravery of a valiant warrior, inflicted death on the man 
whom it struck. Their fears, he added, were justified, 
for the blood which ran in the veins of men born in 
countries scorched with the heat of the sun was scanty 
in stream and poor in quality as compared with that 
which coursed through the bodies of men belonging to 
more temperate regions. ' In these temperate regions 
you were born/ he pleaded, ' and you have therefore a 



I op 5- '^^^^ Council of Clermont. 31 

title to victory which your enemies can never acquire. 
You have prudence, you have discipline, you have skill 
and valour, and you will go forth, through the gift of God 
and the privilege of St. Peter, absolved from all your 
sins. The consciousness of this freedom shall soothe 
the toil of your journey, and death will bring to you the 
benefits of a blessed martyrdom. Sufferings and tor- 
ments may perhaps await you. You may picture them 
to yourselves as the most exquisite tortures, and the pic- 
ture may perhaps fall short of the agony which you may 
have to undergo ; but your sufferings will redeem your 
souls at the expense of your bodies. Go then on your 
errand of love, of love for the faithful who in the lands 
overcome by the infidel cannot defend themselves, of 
love which will put out of sight all the ties that bind you 
to the spots which you have called your homes. Your 
homes, in truth, they are not. For the Christian all the 
world is exile, and all the world is at the same time his 
ccTuntry. If you leave a rich patrimony here, a better 
patrimony is promised to you in the Holy Land. They 
who die will enter the mansions of heaven, while the liv- 
ing shall behold the sepulchre of their Lord. Blessed 
are they who, taking this vow upon them, shall inherit 
such a recompense : happy they who are led to such a 
conflict, that they may share in such rewards.' 

It was no wonder that words thus striking chords of 
feeling already stretched to intensity should be inter- 
rupted with the passionate cry ' It is the will 
of God ! It is the will of God !' which broke Je^^ultkudf 
from the assembled multitude. ' It is, in 
truth, his will,' added the pontiff, 'and let these words 
be your war-cry when you unsheath your swords against 
the enemy. You are soldiers of the cross : wear, then, 
on your breasts or on your shoulders the blood-red sign 



32 The Crusades. ch. ii. 

of Him who died for the salvation of your souls. Wear 
it as a token that his help will never fail you : wear it as 
the pledge of a vow which can never be recalled.' 

By these words the war now proclaimed against the 

Turks received the name which has become a general 

title for all wars or hostile undertakings car- 

The cross and 

the vow of the ried on in the name of religion. Thousands 
hastened at once to put on the badge and so 
to take their place among the ranks of the crusaders. 
The rival claims of the anti-pope withheld Urban himself 
from taking the pledge to which he was clamorously 
invited ; and worldly prudence alone may have suggested 
the wisdom of standing aloof from a conflict in which 
disaster to a Roman pontiff would certainly be regarded 
as a visible sign of the divine displeasure. Of the clergy, 
the first to assume the cross was Adhemar (Aymer), 
bishop of Puy, and as his reward he received the powers 
and dignity of papal legate. At the head of the laity 
Raymond, count of Toulouse, duke of Narbonne and 
marquis of Provence, promised through his ambassadors 
to be ready by the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 
next following the council, the day fixed for the depar- 
ture of the crusading hosts for Constantinople. 

Thus was the die cast for a venture which in the eye 
of a keen-sighted general or a far-seeing statesman 
Motives of the should have boded little good, but which 
crusa ers. held out irresistible attractions for the great 

mass of the people, — attractions which continued to 
draw hundreds and thousands still to the unknown and 
'mysterious East, when a long series of disasters had 
proved that the journey to Jerusalem was in all likeli- 
hood a journey to the grave. For the really sincere and 
devout, whose lives had been passed without reproach 
and who could await the future with a clear conscience. 



I095' '^^^ Council of Clermont, 33 

there was the deep sense of binding duty, the yearning 
to be brought nearer whether on earth or in heaven to 
the Master whom they loved. For the feudal chieftain 
there was the fierce pastime of war which formed the 
main occupation and perhaps the only delight of his life, 
with the wild excitement produced by the thought that 
the indulgence of his passions had now become a solemn 
act of religion. There was also the prospect of vast and 
permanent conquest ; and the duke or count who left a 
fair domain behind him might look forward to the 
chance of winning a realm as splendid as 

° ^ A, D. 1058-g. 

that which Robert Guiscard and his Nor- 
mans had won in Apulia and Sicily. For the common 
herd and those whom gross living had rendered moral 
cowards, there was the offer of a method by which they 
might wipe away their guilt without changing their char- 
acter and disposition. Not a few might be caught by 
the philosophy of the abbot Guibert, who boldly drew a 
parallel between the crusades and holy orders or mona- 
chism. That height of perfection which ecclesiastics 
might reach in their own sphere was now attainable by 
laymen through an enterprise in which their usual license 
and habits of life would win them the favour of God 
not less than the most unsparing austerity of the monk 
or the priest. It was, in short, a new mode of salvation, 
and they who were hurrying along the broad road to 
destruction now found that the taking of a vow converted 
it into the narrow and rugged path to heaven. Nor was 
the number few of those for whom this convenient 
arrangement was combined with some solid temporal 
advantages. The cross on the breast or shoulder set 
free from the clutches of his lord the burgher or the pea- 
sant attached to the soil, opened the prison doors for 
malefactors of every kind, released the debtor from the 

D 



34 The Crusad'es. ch. ii. 

obligation of paying interest on his debts while he wore 
the sacred badge, and placed him beyond the reach of 
his creditors. Lastly, the episode of a crusade might be 
for the priest a pleasant interruption to the dull routine 
of parochial work, to the monk an agreeable change 
from the wearisome monotony of his conventual life. 
The usurer and the creditor might fancy himself to be 
. , somewhat hardly treated. Yet they were 

s mancial ^ •' 

effect of the amongst the few to whom the crazy enter- 

cms 3.C16 

prise (crazy not from the impracticability of 
its objects, but from the way in which these were fol- 
lowed,) brought a solid benefit. The unthinking throng 
might rush off to Palestine without making the least pre- 
paration for their journey or their maintenance, in the 
blind faith that they would be fed and clothed like the 
fowls of the air or the lilies of the field. But for those 
who could judge more soberly, and for those who were 
not willing to forego their luxuries or their pleasures, 
there was the need of providing a store of the precious 
metals by means of which alone their wishes could be 
gratified. The duke, who had to maintain a vast and 
brilliant retinue, was compelled to mortgage his domi- 
nions; and thus for the sum of ten thousand marks, 
wrung from the lower orders in the English state, Wil- 
liam Rufus obtained from his brother Robert the govern- 
ment of his dukedom for five years, and took care that 
the prize so won should not slip again from his grasp. 
Nobles and knights, setting off on the crusade, all 
wished to sell land, all wished to buy arms and horses. 
The arms and horses therefore became ruinously dear, 
the lands ridiculously cheap. It is easy to see that the 
prudent trader, the cautious merchant, the landowner 
whose eye was fixed on the main chance, would stand 
at an enormous advantage. 



CH. II. The Council of Clermont. 35 

But if these were gainers, the gains of the pope and 
the sacerdotal army of which he was the chief were 
greater still. If the proclamation of the crusader rendered 
aiU private warfare a treason against Christendom, if it set 
free even the noble from the power of the Effects of the 
overlord, and made the latter incapable of crusades on 

1 . , , . 1 1 • r ^1 the power of 

summonmg his vassal to his standard, 11 tne the pope and 
crusader, as the soldier of the Church, was ^ ^ ^ ^^^^' 
released from every other obligation, these tremendous 
changes had been wrought wholly by the power of the 
pope and his hierarchy. In placing the dominions of all 
crusading princes under the protection of the Church, the 
council of Clermont may have provided for those chiefs 
a most inadequate defence ; but it placed the pope on a 
level above all earthly princes, and the power which with- 
held the arm of the creditor from falling upon _ . 

" '- JJispensing 

his debtor became a vast dispensing autho- power of the 
rity, the possession of which would have de- 
lighted the heart and realized the highest longings of 
Hildebrand. Urban did not go to Palestine : but even 
there he was present in the person of his legate Adhemar, 
and thus claimed the guidance of a war sanctified by his 
blessing and undertaken in the cause of the Church. The 
vows of the crusader were taken, again, by many who 
had no present intention of fulfilhng them. Sickness, or 
misfortune, or qualms of conscience might lead them to 
assume the fatal sign ; but from that moment until they 
set off on their journey they put themselves in the power 
of the pope, who sometimes used with cruel effect the 
hold thus obtained over emperors and kings. 

Kings, it is true, reaped no small benefit from the im- 
pulse which drove their vassals to the Holy Sepulchre ; 
and the absorption of the smaller into larger ^ , 

Tcncicncv 

fiefs and of these again into royal domain, of the cm- 



36 TJie Crusades. ch. ii. 

break '^^ th tended to that extension of the sovereign 
feudal power which ultimately broke up the feudal 

system. But these results were far distant : 
the inimediate harvest was gathered by the pope. 

Thus far he had appeared by his representatives in 
general or local councils ; by these he had interfered in 

the settlement of disputes, through these he 
wealth^^of the ^'^^ negotiated with princes. But the preach- 
pope and the \-^„ Qf ^-j^g crusades fumishcd a reason or a 

clergy. ° 

pretext for sending his legates into every 
land. Their primary business was to stir up the hearts 
of the faithful or to keep them up to fever heat : but 
scarcely less important was the task of collecting money 
for the support of the crusading armies. On the clergy, 
whether secular or regular, and on the monastic orders, 
the pope had a claim which they dared not to call into 
question, and the subsidies exacted or enjoined for this 
purpose were paid with a real or a feigned cheerfulness. 
To the laity the prayer for voluntary alms assumed 
practically the form of a demand. Refusal would imply 
lukewarmness in the faith, if not positive heresy ; and 
the imputation could not be incurred without peril of 
temporal and even of eternal ruin. Both for the clergy 
and the laity the charge for a special and temporary 
purpose became a permanent tax, the proceeds of which 
the pope might expend on any objects, and in the theory 
of the time he could spend them on none which were 
not good. 

But for the impost thus laid upon them the clergy had 
a compensation which by the nature of the case could 

not be enjoyed by the laity. If a bishop 
pledgfngor^''*^ put ou the cross he might lay a burden on 
mortgaging of ^jg estates, but he could not alienate them. 

lands. ^ _ ' 

as his right over them ceased with his death ; 



CH. II. The Council of Clermont. 37 

but in point of fact it was chiefly the prelates and the 
monastic houses that became 'guardians or mortgagees 
of lands belonging to men who had betaken themselves 
to the Holy Land. The Jews, who amassed immense 
profits on their loans to needy crusaders, had nothing to 
do with the cultivation of the soil, and in most countries 
could not be owners of it. But the Church was every- 
where ready with its protection and its money ; nor were 
there wanting enthusiasts who, as they fixed the blood- 
red cross on their garment, gave up all their lands and 
worldly goods to the spiritual body whose prayers they 
regarded as a more than sufficient recompense. Even 
they who left the Church merely the guardian of their 
estates in their absence might die in the East ; and if 
they died without heirs the guardians became absolute 
owners. If they came back, toil and disappointment 
had often so worn them down that they took refuge in a 
cloister and handed over to the fraternity whatever of 
their property might still remain to them. The vast 
gains thus accruing were all over and beyond the ac- 
cumulations amassed from the bequests of ordinary or 
extraordinary penitents on their death-beds or the gifts 
of enthusiastic devotees during their lifetime ; and all 
the land so gained to the Church was withdrawn from 
the jurisdiction of the sovereign who professed to rule 
the country, and thus formed a kingdom within a king- 
dom, the spiritual domain threatening constantly to ab- 
sorb that of the secular monarch. A collision, followed 
by violent and iniquitous spoliation, became inevitable ; 
and when the time was come the great fabric of eccle- 
siastical wealth was plundered and demolished. 

In the enterprise to which Latin Chris- ^^ , 

^ The crusades 

tendom thus stood committed, the several not national en- 
nations or countries of Europe took very 



38 The Crusades. ch. ii. 

equal parts ; or, rather, no nation, as such, took any part 
in it at all ; and in this fact we have the explanation of 
that want of coherent action, and even decent or average 
generalship, which is commonly seen in national under- 
takings. For the crusade there was no attempt at a com- 
missariat, no care for a base of supplies ; and the cru- 
sading hosts were a collection of individual adventurers 
who either went without making any provisions for their 
journey or provided for their own needs and those of 
their followers from their own resources. The number 
of these adventurers were naturally determined by the 
political conditions of the country from which they came. 
In Italy the struggle between the pope and the anti-pope 
went far towards chilling enthusiasm ; and the recruits 
for the crusading army came chiefly from the Normans 
who had followed Robert Guiscard to the sunny southern 
lands. The Spaniards were busied with a crusade nearer 
home, and were already pushing back to the south the 

Mahomedan dominion which had once 
A. D. 1085. threatened to pass the barriers of the Py- 
Europe*ki the rcnecs and carry the Crescent to the shores 
time of Urban ^f ^^ Baltic Sea. About ten years before 

the council of Clermont the Moslem dynasty 
of Toledo had been expelled by Alfonso, king of Gallicia : 
the kingdom of Cordova had fallen twenty years earlier 
(1065), and while Peter the Hermit was hurrying hither 
and thither through the countries of northern Europe, 
the Christians of Spain were winning victories in Mur- 
cia, and the land was ringing with the exploits of the 
dauntless Cid, Ruy Diaz de Bivar. By the Germans the 
summons to. the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre was re- 
ceived with comparative coldness ; the partisans of em- 
perors, who had been humbled to the dust by the pre- 
decessors of Urban, if not by himself, were not vehe- 



1096. The First Crusade. 39 

mently eager to obey it. The bishops of Salzburg, 
Passau, and Strasburg, the aged duke Guelf of Bavaria, 
had undertaken the toilsome and perilous journey : not 
one of them saw their homes again, and their death in 
the distant East was not regarded by their countrymen 
as an encouragement to follow their example. In Eng- 
land the English were too much weighed down by the 
miseries of the Conquest, the Normans too much oc- 
cupied in strengthening their position, and the king, 
William the Red, more ready to take advantage of the 
needs of his brother Robert than to incur any risks of 
his own. The great movement came from the lands ex- 
tending from the Scheldt to the Pyrenees. Franks and 
Normans alike made ready with impetuous haste for the 
great adventure ; and tens of thousands, who could not 
wait for the formation of something like a regular army, 
hurried away, under leaders as frantic as themselves, to 
their inevitable doom. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE FIRST CRUSADE. 

Little more than half the time allowed for the gather- 
ing of the crusaders had passed away, when a crowd 
of some sixty thousand men and women, ^ ^ 10^5 
neither caring nor thinking about the means ^l^^^^\ 
by which their ends could be attained, in- rabble of cm- 

S3.d6rs undd* 

sisted that the hermit Peter should lead them Peter the 
at once to the holy city. Mere charity may wXr the*^ 
justify the belief that some even amongst Penniless. 
these may have been folk of decent lives moved by the 
earnest conviction that their going to Jerusalem would do 
some good ; that the vast majority looked upon their vow 



40 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

as a license for the commission of any sin, there can be 
no moral doubt ; that they exhibited not a single quality 
needed for the successful prosecution of their enterprise, 
is absolutely certain. With a foolhardiness equal to his 
ignorance, Peter undertook the task, in which he was 
aided by Walter the Penniless, a man with some preten- 
sions to the soldier-like character. But the utter disorder 
of this motley host made it impossible for them to journey 
long together. At Cologne they parted company ; and 
15,000 under the penniless Walter made their way to the 
frontiers of Hungary, while Peter led onwards a host 
which swelled gradually on the march to about 40,000. 

Another army or horde of perhaps 20,000 marched un- 
der the guidance of Emico, count of Leiningen, a third 
Second rab- Under that of the monk Gotschalk, a man 
Emiccfand ^°^ notorious for the purity or disinterested- 
Gotschaik. ness of his motives. Behind these came a 
rabble, it is said, of 200,000 men, women, and children, 
preceded by a goose and a goat, or, as some have sup- 
posed, by banners on which, as symbols of the mysterious 
faith of Gnostics and Paulicians, the likeness of these 
animals was painted. In this vile horde no pretence was 
kept up of order or of decency. Sinning freely, it would 
seem, that grace might abound, they plundered and 
harried the lands through which they marched, while 
3,000 horsemen, headed by some counts and gentlemen, 
were not too dignified to act as their attendants and to 
share their spoil. 

But if they had no scruple in robbing Christians, their 
delight was to prove the reality of their mission as soldiers 
„. , of the cross by plundering, torturing, and 

secutions of slaying Jews. The crusade against the Turk 
was interpreted as a crusade directed not 
less explicitly against the descendants of those who had 



1096. The First Crusade. 41 

crucified the Redeemer. The streets of Verdun and 
Treves, and of the great cities on the Rhine, ran red with 
the blood of their victims ; and if some saved their hves 
by pretended conversions, many more cheated their per- 
secutors by throwing their property and their persons 
either into the rivers or into the consuming fires. Thus 
auspiciously began the mighty enterprise on which pope 
Urban had insisted as the first duty of all Christians ; and 
thus early did the result of his preaching tend to revive 
the waning power of the emperor, who interposed his 
authority to this merciless onslaught on a ^, ^ 

■^ " The Jews 

peaceable and useful class of his subjects, taken under 
The Jews were taken under the protection tio^n^of the 
of the empire, and for the time the change ^^p^^"^- 
was a real relief. Their posterity found to their cost that 
their guardian might in his turn become their plunderer 
and tormentor. 

A space of six hundred miles lay between the Austrian 
frontier and Constantinople ; and across the dreary waste 
the followers of Walter the Penniless strug- M^rch of 
gled on, destitute of money, and rousing ^^j.'^^r.^"^ 
the hostility of the inhabitants whom they through 
robbed and ill-used. In Bulgaria their mis- anTfiuiJ 
deeds provoked reprisals which threatened ^^"^* 
their destruction ; and none perhaps would have reached 
Constantinople, if the imperial commander at Naissos 
had not rescued them from their enemies, supplied them 
with food, and guarded them through the remainder of 
their journey. These succours involved some costs ; 
and the costs were paid by the sale of unarmed men 
amongst the pilgrims, and especially of the women and 
children, who were seized to provide the necessary funds- 
Of those who formed the train of the hermit Peter, seven 
thousand only, it is said, reached Constantinople. 



42 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

Of such a rabble rout the Emperor Alexios needed 
not to be afraid. He had already seen and encountered 
Passage of ^"^^ larger armies of Normans, Turks, and 

the pilgrims Romans t and he now extended to this van- 
across the ' 
Bosporos. guard of the hosts of Latin Christendom a 

hospitality which was almost immediately abused. They 
had refused to comply with his request that they should 
quietly await the arrival of their fellow crusaders ; and 
consulting the safety of his people not less than his own, 
he induced them to cross the Bosporos, and pitch their 
camp on Asiatic soil, the land which they had come to 
wrest from the unbelievers. 

Alexios wished simply to be rid of their presence: 
they had to deal with an enemy still more crafty and 
formidable in the Seljukian Sultan David, whose sur- 
name Kilidje Arslan marked him out as the Sword of 
_, . the Lion. The vagrants whom Peter and 

Their utter 

destruction by Walter had brought thus far on the road to 
1 1 je rs an. JgJ.^g3^|gJJ^ were scattered about the land in 
search of food ; and it was no hard task for David to 
cheat the main body with the false tidings that their 
companions had carried the walls of Nice (Nikaia), and 
were revelling in the pleasures and spoils of his capital. 
The doomed horde rushed into the plain which fronts the 
city ; and a vast heap of bones alone remained to tell 
the story of the great catastrophe, when the forces which 
might more legitimately claim the name of an army 
passed the spot where the Seljukian had entrapped and 
crushed his victims. In this wild expedition not less, it 
is said, than 300,000 human beings had already paid the 
penalty of their lives. 

Still the first crusade was destined to accomplish more 
than any of the seven or eight crusades which followed 



1096. The First Crusade. 43 

it ; and this measure of success it achieved „ , 

Rank and 

probably because none of the great European character of 

, , ... rr^i -,,7 , the leaders of 

sovereigns took part m it. 1 he Western the first cru- 
emperor, Henry IV., the representative of ^^*^^' 
Charles the Great was the enemy of the pope ; Philip I., 
king of France, had been excommunicated by Urban in 
the council of Clermont ; the sovereigns of Denmark, 
Scotland, Sweden and Poland were as yet scarcely 
brought within the community of European monarchs ; 
the Spanish kings had their crusades ready made at home ; 
and we have already seen that the English William II., 
was more intent on acquiring dukedoms than on run- 
ning the risk of a blessed martyrdom at the gates of Jeru- 
salem. The task of setting up a Latin kingdom in Pales- 
tine was to be achieved by princes of the second order. 
Of these the foremost and the most deservedly illus- 
trious was Godfrey, of Bouillon in the Ardennes, a kins- 
man of the counts of Boulogne, and duke of ^ ,, 

. . , - Godfrey of 

Lothrmgen (Lorraine). In the service of the Bouillon and 

TT TTT ^1 .^ • his brothers 

emperor Henry IV., the enemy or the vie- Baldwin and 
tim of Hildebrand, he had been the first to Eustace. 
mount the walls of Rome and cleave his way into the 
city ; he might hope that his crusading vow would be 
accepted as an atonement for his sacrilege. Speaking 
the Frank and Teutonic dialects with equal ease, he ex- 
ercised by his bravery, his wisdom, and the uprightness 
of his life, an influence which brought to his standard, 
it is said, not less than 80,000 infantry and 10,000 horse- 
men, together with his brothers Baldwin and Eustace, 
count of Boulogne. 

Among the most conspicuous of Godfrey's colleagues 
was Hugh, count of Vermandois, whose surname the 
Great has been ascribed by some .to his birth jjugh of 
as the brother of Philip I., the French king, Vermandois. 



44 The Cnisades. CH. in. 

by others merely to his stature as * Hugh the long.* 
With him may be placed the Norman duke Robert, 
Robert of whose carelessness had lost him the crown 

Normandy. Qf England, and who had now pawned his 
duchy for a pittance scarcely less paltry than that for 
which Esau bartered away his birthright. The picture 
drawn of him is indeed not unlike that of the forefather of 
the Edomite tribes. Careless of the future, open in his 
friensdhip or his enmity, free from duplicity in himself 
and unsuspicious of treachery in others, charming others 
and injuring himself by his light-hearted cheerfulness 
and his lavish generosity, Robert was a man whom the 
total lack of the qualities which marked his iron-hearted 
father brought to a horrible captivity and death in the 
dungeons of Cardiff Castle. 

The number of the great chiefs who led the pilgrims 
from northern Europe is completed with the names of 
Robert of Robert, count of Flanders, whom his fol- 

Ste"hen^of"^ lowers laudcd as the Sword and Lance of 
Chartres. the Christians, and of Stephen, count of 

Chartres, Troyes, and Blois, the possessor, if we choose 
to believe the tale, of 365 castles, and as rich in his elo- 
quence as in his fortresses. The same arithmetic would 
have us think that the minor chiefs were more numerous 
than the champions whom Agamemnon led to the Tro- 
jan war; and the assertion is perhaps as much and as 
little to be credited as the catalogue of Greek warriors in 
the Iliad. 

Foremost, by virtue of his title and office, among the 
leaders of the southern bands, was the papal legate 
Adhemar Adhemar (Aymer) bishop of Puy — a leader 

IS op o uy. ^2,\}!\Q.x as guiding the counsels of the army 
than as gathering soldiers under his banner. A hundred 
thousand horse and foot attested, we are told, the great- 



1096. The First Crusade. 45 

ness, the wealth, and the zeal of Raymond, Raymond of 
count of Toulouse, lord of Auvergne and ououse. 
Languedoc, who had grown old in warfare, and won for 
himself a mingled reputation for wisdom and haughti- 
ness, obstinacy and greed. 

Less tinged with the fanatical enthusiasm of his com- 
rades, and certainly more cool and deliberate in his 
ambition, Bohemond, son of Robert Guis- . 

card, whom we have seen fighting at Dyrr- 
hachium and victorious at Larissa (p. 23), looked to the 
crusade as a means by which he might regain the vast 
regions extending from the Dalmatian coast to the 
northern shores of the Egean. Nay, if we are to believe 
William of Malmesbury, he urged Urban to set forward 
the enterprise for the very purpose, partly, of thus recov- 
ering what he was pleased to regard as his inheritance, 
and in part of enabling the pontiff to suppress all oppo- 
sition in Rome. Guiscard had left his Apulian domains 
to a younger son, and Bohemond was resolved, it would 
seem, to add to his principality of Tarentum a kingdom 
which would make him a formidable rival of the Eastern 
emperor. 

Far above his companion Bohemond, rises his cousin 
Tancred, the son of the marquis Odo, surnamed the 
Good, and of Emma, the sister of Robert ^ 

r^ • T 1 -I • • Tancred. 

Guiscard ; and his reputation comes not 
from his wealth or the greatness of his following, but 
from the qualities of mind and person which raised him 
indefinitely nearer than his fellows to the standard of the 
' very gentle perfect knight ' of Chaucer. In Tancred 
was seen the embodiment of those peculiar sentiments 
and modes of thought which gave birth to the crusades, 
and to which the crusades in their ttrn imparted mar- 
vellous strength and splendour. 



46 The Crusades. CH. in. 

When in the council of Clermont pope Urban dwelt 
on the cowardice and ignoble fears of the Turks, he 

probably touched a chord which grated on 
effect of chi- the morc generous and enthusiastic amongst 

his hearers,' and was in fact speaking as a 
priest when with greater wisdom he should have used the 
language of a general. There can be little doubt that 
the finer spirits of the age were moved by the eager 
desire of rescuing a crowd of helpless Christians from 
conquerors whose might it was impossible for them to 
resist, and who were worthy antagonists even for the 
noblest knights of Latin and Teutonic Christendom. 
The rescue of this feeble multitude could be effected only 
at the cost of a great sacrifice, — the sacrifice of houses 
and lands, of luxuries and pleasures : and the conscious- 
ness of large sacrifices, cheerfully made for the weak and 
suffering, is amongst the highest feelings which may be 
awakened in the human heart. Thus in the most noble- 
minded and disinterested of the crusading champions 
there was distinctly a combination of two ideas, seemingly 
discordant, yet working together to produce one definite 
moral result. These were the indignation with which 
they regarded the tyranny exercised over the Christians 
of the East, and the involuntary respect and even admi- 
ration which they felt for the conquerors as the most re- 
doubtable warriors of the age next to the foremost knights 
of Christendom. The former feeling would impel them 
to the most desperate efibrts for the recovery of the Holy 
Land and the Holy Sepulchre ; the latter would place 
checks dimly recognized and not always heeded on the 
ferocious warfare with which they would without scruple 
seek to sweep away all meaner or more savage enemies. 
So far as he was actuated by such motives, the crusader 
was cultivating in himself the germs of forbearance and 



1096. The First Crusade. 47 

toleration which must at once to whatever extent soften 
the horrors of war and which would in the end yield 
more solid and satisfying fruits. In this same direction 
the influence of the Church was felt with constantly in- 
creasing power. It had been her aim to curb, when she 
could not repress, the violence of her children, and to 
establish by a solemn sanction that Truce of God which 
prevented the practice of private war from becoming a 
burden too heavy for the earth to bear. But in the expe- 
dition for the delivery of the Holy Land war itself was 
sanctified ; and the knight, initiated even in past years 
by rites, which, heathen in their origin, had been made 
sacred by the Church, was raised almost to the level of 
the priest and the monk. Henceforth the young aspirant 
for the knightly dignity and office was treated much as 
the catechumens had been treated in the first ^^ . , , , 

^, . . . TT Knighthood. 

.Christian centuries. He must enter on his 
work with clean thoughts and pure conscience, and the 
spotless garment of the catechumen, purified by his long 
fast, was reproduced in the white robe which the young 
squire put on after cleansing his body in the bath, while 
the profession of baptism was repeated in the knightly 
vow which (after a special confession of sin followed by 
absolution) pledged the young man to deal justly, truly, 
and generously, defending the oppressed, succouring the 
needy and helpless, and everywhere showing himself the 
unsparing antagonist of all tyrants and evil-doers. In an 
especial degree he was to be the champion of women, 
the protector of children ; and he rose from his knees 
before the assembled clergy, dubbed a knight by the 
sword of his godfather in the names of God, of our Lady, 
and of St. Michael, or St. George. The nearest to the 
heart of those who uttered this formula, as to that of 
the young knight, was the name of the Virgin Mother, 



48 The Crusades. CH. in. 

whose name, it would seem, has fascinated multitudes 
without curing them of savage treachery and blood- 
thirsty ferocity. In feudal phrase she was his Lady 
(Notre Dame), as the crucified Jesus was his Lord (Notre 
Seigneur) ; and the adoring and humble love which he 
bore for her was held to sanctify and to be reflected in 
the devotion which he felt for every noble lady and more 
especially for the one favoured dame who became the 
idol of his heart, a star to be worshipped at a distance, 
if not a queen at whose feet he might throw himself in 
an ecstacy of passion. This being whom he delighted 
to picture to himself as the peerless ideal of womanhood 
might be the wife of another man ; and these extravagant 
fancies produced not unfrequently the most lamentable 
and ruinous results. But the knightly or chivalrous 
spirit, thus sometimes led astray, tended nevertheless to 
impose moral checks on rude and savage minds which 
had never felt them before ; and the growth of this spirit 
was ensured chiefly by the crusaders. The iniquities 
wrought by the soldiers of the Cross were fearful indeed ; 
but the horrors of the warfare were in some small measure 
softened by the honour which the foremost warriors on 
both sides paid each to the bravery and good faith of the 
other ; and this feeling expressed itself in a word which 
even now has by no means lost its meaning. The quality 
^ ^ of courtesy so named displayed itself in the 

Courtesy. , -^ _ r j 

readiness to give place to another where 
strength and power might have refused all concessions. 
It was closely allied to the Christian qualities of meekness 
and mercy, and any approach to this heavenly temper 
was a gain indeed in a brutalized and ferocious age. The 
highest glory of the crusading knight was to be a mirror 
of courtesy : and this glory is especially associated with 
the name of Tancred. Tancred lived, fought, and con- 



1096. The First Crttsade. 49 

quered: the Rinaldo whom Tasso paints in his epic 
poem on the deHverance of Jerusalem is a being of 
cloudland Uke the Greek Achilleus, the Trojan Hektor, 
and the Persian Rustam. 

The miserable remnant of 3,000 men who escaped 
from the field of blood before the city of the Seljukian 
Sultan (p. 41), found a refuge in Byzantine ^ ^ g 
territory about the time when the better ap- August. De- 

•^ . parture of the 

pointed armies of the crusaders were settmg main army of 

rr ,1 • , 1 • -T-'i . the crusaders 

off on their eastward journey, ihe most under God- 
disciplined of these troops set out with a ^^^y- 
vast following from the banks of the Meuse and the 
Moselle under Godfrey of Bouillon who led them safely 
and without opposition to the Hungarian border. Here 
the armies of Hungary barred the way against the ad- 
vance of a host at whose hands they dreaded a repeti- 
tion of the havoc wrought by the lawless bands of Peter 
the Hermit and his self-chosen colleagues. Three weeks 
passed away in vain attempts to get over the difficulty. 
The Hungarian king demanded as a hostage Baldwin, 
the brother of the general : the demand was refused, and 
Godfrey put him to shame by surrendering himself. He 
asked only for a free passage and a free market ; but 
although these were granted, it was not in his power to 
prevent some disorder and some depredations as his 
army or horde passed through the country. The mis- 
chief might have been much worse, had not the Hunga- 
rian calvary, acting professedly as a friendly escort but 
really as cautious warders kept close to the crusading hosts. 
At length they reached the gates of Philippopolis, and 
here Godfrey learnt that Hugh of Vermandois, whose 
coming had been announced to the Greek ^ . . 

° , Captivity of 

emperor Alexios by four-and-twenty knights Hugh of Ver- 
in golden armour, and who styled himself 



50 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

the brother of the king of kings and lord of all the Frank- 
ish hosts, was a prisoner within the walls of Constanti- 
nople. With Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flan- 
ders, with Stephen of Chartres and some lesser chiefs, 
Hugh had chosen to make his way through Italy ; and 
the charms of that voluptuous land had a greater effect, 
it seems, in breaking up and corrupting their forces than 
the delights of Capua had in weakening the soldiers of 
Hannibal. With little regard to order the chiefs deter- 
mined to cross the sea as best they might. Hugh em- 
barked at Bari ; and if we may believe Anna Comnena, 
the historian and the worshipper of her father Alexios, 
his fleet was broken by a tempest which shattered his 
own ship on the coast between Palos and Dyrrhachium 
(Durazzo), of which John Comnenos, the nephew of the 
emperor, was at this time the governor. The Frank 
chief was here detained until the good pleasure of Alexios 
should be known. That wary and cunning prince saw 
at once how much might be made of his prisoner, who 
was by his orders conducted with careful respect and 
ceremony to the capital. Kept here really as a hostage, 
but welcomed to outward seeming as a friend, Hugh was 
so completely won by the charm of manner which Alex- 
ios well knew how and when to put on, that, paying him 
homage and declaring himself his man, he promised to 
do what he could to induce others to follow his example. 
From Philippopolis Godfrey sent ambassadors to 
Alexios, demanding the immediate surrender of Hugh. 
, The request was refused, and Godfrey re- 

Christmas, sumed his march, treating the land through 

Arrival of , . , , , , 

Godfrey before which he passcd as an enemy s country, 
Conrtanti^^ Until by way of Adrianople he at length ap- 
"op^s- peared before the walls of the capital at 

Christmastide, 1096. The fears of Alexios were aroused 



1096. The First Crusade. 51 

by the sight of a host so vast and so formidable : they 
quickened into terror as he thought of the armies which 
were still on their way under the command of Bohemond 
and Tancred. Of Godfrey, beyond the fact ^ , 

r 1 • • • J 1 1 1 • 1 Policy of the 

of his mission as a crusader, he knew little emperor 
or nothing : but in Bohemond he saw one 
who claimed as his inheritance no small portion of his 
empire. This gathering of myriads, whom a false step 
on his part might convert into open enemies, was the re- 
sult of his own entreaties urged through his envoys be- 
fore Urban II. in the council of Piacenza ; and his mind 
was divided between a feverish anxiety to hurry them on 
to their destination and so to rid himself of their hateful 
presence, and the desire to retain a hold not only on the 
crusading chiefs but on any conquests which they might 
make in Syria. 

Hugh was sent back to Godfrey's camp ; but the 
quarrel was patched up, rather than ended. It was 
easier to rouse suspicion and jealousy than to restore 
friendship. But it was of the first import- compact be- 
ance for Alexios that he should secure the *^'^^^" Aiexios 

- . and the cru- 

homage of the princes already gathered saders. 
round his capital before the arrival of his ancient enemy 
Bohemond. In this he succeeded, and a compact was 
made by which Alexios pledged them his word that he 
would supply them with food and aid them in their east- 
ward march, and would protect all pilgrims passing 
through his dominions. On the other hand the crusad- 
ing chiefs, as already subjects of other sovereigns, gave 
their fealty to the emperor as their liege lord only for the 
time during which they might remain within his borders, 
and undertook to restore to him such of their conquests 
as had been recently wrested from the empire. In order 
to secure this treaty Alexios had been compelled to go 



52 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

through the fatigue of interminable audiences with the 
Western warriors and to put up with not a Httle inso- 
lence. The effrontery of a crusader, who flinging him- 
self on the imperial throne declared that he saw no 
reason for standing while one rustic remained seated, 
was denounced as intolerable rudeness even by his com- 
panions ; but Robert, count of Paris, if indeed it was he, 
closed a brief career not many weeks later, and is more 
conspicuous in modern romance than in the pages of 
mediaeval historians. 

The spirit of Bohemond was stirred deeply within 
him when on reaching Constantinople he found that his 
„ colleagues, instead of remaining indepen- 

crusaders to dent chicfs, had made themselves vassals of 
the Byzantine monarch. But Alexios was 
vigorously aided by Robert of Flanders, whose friendly 
offices were the result of an alliance made with his 
father eight years before ; and Bohemond soon saw that 
he must in appearance follow the example of his com- 
rades, whatever course it might suit him to take here- 
after. He became the guest of the emperor, listened 
with complacency to his flatteries, accepted a magnificent 
gift or bribe, and accompanied his submission with a re- 
quest for the office of Grand Domestic, or general of the 
East. The emperor put him off with the promise of an 
independent principality, and turned with mo^-^ genuine 
warmth to the honest simplicity of Godfrey. This dis- 
interested crusader was anxious only to fulfill his vows ; 
and Alexios felt that he was making no sacrifice and en- 
tering into no inconvenient engagements by adopting 
him as his son. 

The policy and the bribes of Alexios had overcome 
the opposition of Bohemond. He was to experience a 
stouter resistance from Raymond of Toulouse, who. 



I097- The First Crusade. 53 

though he had been the first to enUst, was 

the last to set out on his crusade. He should march''of"^ 

never make another journey, he said, and he Raymond of 

■' ■' ioulouse to 

was determined to be well prepared. Wish- Constanti- 
ing to avoid, so far as he could, the lines of "°^ ^' 
march chosen by the chiefs who had preceded him, he 
took the road through Lombardy. Thus far his march 
was easily accomplished : but things wore a different look 
when he reached the savage mountains and desolate 
valleys of Dalmatia and Slavonia. The people had 
driven their cattle (and their cattle formed practically 
their whole property) into inaccessible glens: and instead 
of plundering others the crusaders found themselves ha- 
rassed and their stragglers cut off by thieves and murder- 
ers. Raymond retaliated by cutting off the hands and 
noses of all who were taken prisoners and putting out 
their eyes; and the wrath of the natives was roused to 
desperate resistance. At Scodra he entered into some 
sort of agreement with the Servian chief Bodin; but the 
country could yield little for the support of this vast 
army, which was compelled to struggle onwards under 
dire difficulties. It is astonishing to hear that Raymond 
could still speak of himself as the leader of a hundred 
thousand warriors, when he refused flatly to do homage 
to the Greek emperor. 

The count of Toulouse scarcely regarded himself as 
the vassal even of the French king. He was ready, he 
said, to be the friend of Alexios on equal ^ ^ , , 

■^ Reiusal of 

terms ; but he would not declare himself to Raymond to 
be his man. On this point he was immov- ° omage. 
able, although Bohemond tried the effect of a threat, 
which was never forgiven, that if the quarrel came to 
blows, he should be found on the side of the emperor. 
But Alexios soon saw that in Raymond he had to deal 



54 "^he Crusades, ch. hi. 

with an enthusiast as sincere and persistent as Godfrey. 
He took his measures accordingly, and winning the heart 
of the old warrior, although he failed to compel his obe- 
dience, he confessed to him his dislike of the rude and 
noisy habits of the Franks and his deep-seated fears of 
Bohemond. The admiration of Anna Comnena was as 
great as the esteem professed for him by her father. Ray- 
mond in her fervent language shone among the barba- 
rians as the sun among the stars of heaven. 

While Alexios was thus busied in dealing with Godfrey 
and Raymond, Bohemond and Tancred, he was not less 

anxiously occupied with the task of sending 
Alexios to the across the Bosporos the swarms which might 

soon become an army of devouring locusts 
round his own capital. It was easier to give them a wel- 
come than to get rid of them : and more than two months 
A. D 1007 t^^^ passed since Christmas, when the follow- 

March. gj-g Qf Godfrey found themselves on the soil 

of Asia. It was well to place even a narrow strait of sea 
between himself and these dangerous friends, who had 
threatened him at first with all the horrors of savage war. 
The rumour had got abroad that Alexios meant to hem 
them in among marshes, and leave them there to starve ; 
and an assault of the crusaders on the suburbs showed 
the emperor what he might expect, if these suspicions 
were not quieted. Probably he had not intended to en- 
trap them to their death : but he had felt less scruple in 
submitting them to cheatings with debased coin and to 
extortions which carried with them no sense of novelty 
for his own people. Even these he found it politic to 
abandon, and so zealously did he employ an opposite 
method that for the time the crusaders seemed to have 
become his mercenaries. 

Godfrey's men had no sooner been landed on the 



I097' "^^^ First Crusade. 55 

eastern side of the Bosporos, than all the vessels which 
had transported them were brought back „ , , 

P3.SS3.2rG 01 trie 

to the western shore. With great astute- crusaders across 
ness, and at the cost of large gifts, Alexios ^ osporos. 
in like manner freed the neighbourhood of his capital 
from the invading multitudes. As fast as they came, 
they were hurried across, and the emperor breathed 
more freely when, on the feast of Pentecost, not a single 
Latin pilgrim remained on the European shore. 

The danger of conflict had throughout been immi- 
nent ; and the danger arose, not so much from the fact 
that the crusaders were armed men, march- ^„ 

i horough an- 

ing through the country of professed allies, tagonism be- 
but from the thorough antagonism between saders and'^the 
Greeks and Latins in modes of thought and Gj'^^^s. 
habits of life, in the first notions of civilization, law, and 
duty. For the Greeks feudalism was a thing of the re- 
mote past ; in other words, was a thing unknown. To 
get at a state resembling that of Western Europe they 
would have had to go back for nearly twenty centuries 
— to the days of Solon and of the Thessalian and Theban 
nobility, who were among the most efficient allies of 
Xerxes. For the crusading armies or rather for their 
chiefs (of the common herd there was no need to take 
any account), nothing was so hateful as a central au- 
thority which pressed on all orders in the state alike : 
nothing was so precious as local tyranny and the right 
of private war, which respected neither person nor pro- 
perty. For the subjects of the Eastern empire the pro- 
tection of person and property was everything, and in 
order to secure this they were willing to put up with a 
large- amount of oppression and of corruption in their 
governors. In a sense not so high perhaps as that whicl> 
the words bore in the days of Herodotos, law was still 



56 The Crusades. CH. 11 1. 

their king ; and of public law the Latins could scarcely 
be said to have any conception. Nor must 
tween^he ^' we forget the vast gulf which separated the 
Latfn cfer Eastern from the Western clergy. The 
latter were now becoming well broken into 
the yoke of celibacy which had been finally thrust upon 
them by Damiani and Hildebrand ; for the former mar- 
riage was a condition for the very reception of their 
orders. The Latin clergy had by this change been con- 
verted into a close order or caste, which looked up to the 
Roman pontiff as their head and hated the thought of 
allegiance to any temporal ruler. This empire within 
an empire was an idea which had not dawned on the 
Greek or the Eastern mind ; and the clergy of the West 
despised their brethren of the East for their cowardly 
submission to the secular arm. These, in their turn, 
shrunk with horror from the sight of bishops, priests, 
and monks riding with blood-stained weapons over fields 
of battle, and exhibiting at other times an ignorance 
equal to their ferocity. Harmony between nations and 
races under such conditions is as hopeless as the volun- 
tary mingling of oil and water ; and the result of contact 
was an exasperation of the suspicion, jealousy, and 
hatred which the one side felt instinctively for the sup- 
posed treachery, lying, and violence of the other. 

Thus was gathered on the eastern shores of the 
Hellespont and the Bosporos a host, we may well believe 
more vast than that which Xerxes drove 
frSS.-^'^^ before him for the invasion of Europe, and 
leaving behind it in utter insignificance the 
scanty force with which Alexander attempted and 
achieved the conquest of Asia. When tribes or a nation 
pour out their whole population, men, women, and chil- 
dren alike, there is practically no limit to the numbers 



I097' The First Ci'usade. 57 

which may be set in motion ; nor is it any tax on our 
credulity to believe that a hundred thousand horsemen, 
fully armed in the light coats of mail worn during the 
first crusading age, were marshalled on the Bithynian 
plains, even if we put aside as an absurd exaggeration 
the notion of the chaplain of Count Baldwin, that the 
whole body of the crusaders amounted to not less than 
six millions. 

Their strength and valour were soon to be tested. 
They were now face to face with the Turks on whose 
cowardice Urban 11. had enlarged with so j^ne. 
much complacency before the council of Siege and fall 
Clermont, The Sultan David, or Kilidje (Nikaia). 
Arslan (p. 41), placed his family and treasures in his 
capital city of Nice (Nikaia), and retreated with 50,000 
horsemen to the mountains, whence he swooped down 
from time to time on the outposts of th§ Christians. By 
these his city was formally invested ; and for seven weeks 
it was assailed to little purpose by the old instruments 
of Roman warfare, while some of the besiegers shot 
their weapons from the hill on which were mouldering 
the bones of the fanatic followers of Peter. It was pro- 
tected to the west by the Askanian lake, and so long as 
the Turks had command of this lake they felt them- 
selves safe. But Alexios sent thither on sledges a large 
number of boats, and the city, subjected to a double 
blockade, submitted to the emperor, who was in no way 
anxious to see the crusaders masters of the place. The 
crusaders were making ready for the last assault, when 
they saw the imperial banner floating on the walls. Their 
disappointment at the escape of the miscreants, or un- 
believers, for so they delighted to speak of them, was 
vented in threats which seemed to bode a renewal of 
the old troubles : but Alexios, with gifts, which added 



58 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

force to his words, professed that his only desire now, 
as it had been, was to forward them safely on their 
journey. Nor had they to go many stages before they 
found themselves again confronted with their adversary. 
The conflict took place near the Phrygian 
Battle of Dorylaion, and seemed at first to portend 

Doryiaion. ^^^^ defeat to the crusaders. More than once 
the issue of the day seemed to be turned by the in- 
domitable personal bravery of the Norman Robert, of 
Tancred, and of Bohemond ; and when even those 
seemed likely to be borne down, they received timely 
succours from Godfrey, and Hugh of Vermandois, from 
bishop Adhemar of Puy and from Raymond, count of 
Toulouse. Still the Turks held out, and it seemed like- 
ly that they would long hold out, when the appearance 
of the last division of Raymond's army filled them with 
the fear that a new host was upon them. 

The crusaders had won a considerable victory. Three 
thousand knights belonging to the enemy had been slain, 
March to ^^<^ Kilidje Arslan was hurrying away to 

Cogni and enlist the services of his kinsmen. Mean- 

the Pisidian 

Antioch. while the Latin hosts were sweepmg on- 

wards, passing Cogni (Ikonion, Iconium), Erekh (Hera- 
kleia), and the Pisidian Antioch. Their dangers were 
great; their sufferings terrible. The son of KiHdje 
Arslan had hurried on before them with ten thousand 
horsemen, and declared before the gates of each city 
that they came as conquerors, not as fugitives. They 
had ravaged the lands as they came along ; in the town 
they sacked the churches, plundered the houses, emptied 
the granaries ; and the crusaders who followed them 
had to journey over a naked soil under the burning 
Phrygian sun. Hundreds died from the heat : and dogs 
or goats took the place of the baggage horses which had 



I097' -2^^ First Crusade. 59 

perished. At length Tancred with his troop found him- 
self before Tarsus, the birthplace and the home of that 
single-hearted apostle who long ago had preached a 
gospel strangely unlike the creed of the crusaders. Fol- 
lowing rapidly behind him, Baldwin saw ^ 

• I , • / 11 r •. T ,• -Quarrel be- 

with keen jealousy the banner 01 the Italian tween Bald- 
chief floating on its towers, and insisted on Tancred at 
taking the precedence. Tancred pleaded 'r^'^s^s. 
the choice of the people and his own promise to protect 
them ; but the intrigues of Baldwin changed their 
humour, and the rejection of Tancred by the men of 
Tarsus was followed by an attempt at private war be- 
tween Tancred and Baldwin, in which the troops of 
Tancred were overborne. So early was the first harvest 
of murderous discord reaped among the holy warriors 
of the cross. It was ruin, however, to stay where they 
were ; and the main army again began its march, to 
undergo once more the old monotony of hardship and 
peril. 

A very small force would have sufficed to disorganize 
and rout them as they clambered over the defiles of 
Mount Taurus ; nor could Raymond, re- ^ 

■^ Conquest of 

covering from a terrible illness, or Godfrey, Edessa by 
suffering from wounds inflicted by a bear, 
have done much to help them. But for the present 
their enemies were dismayed ; and Baldwin, brother of 
Godfrey, hastened with eagerness to obey a summons 
which besought him to aid the Greek or Armenian tyrant 
of Edessa. As Alexios had done to his brother, so this 
chief welcomed Baldwin as his son ; but Baldwin, having 
once entered into the city, cared nothing for the means 
which had brought him thither, and the death of his 
adoptive father was followed by the establishment at 
Edessa of a Latin principality which lasted for fifty-four, 



6o The Crusades. CH. iii. 

or, as some have thought, forty-seven years. Baldwin 
had anticipated the unconditional surrender of Samo- 
sata ; but the Turkish governor had some of the Edes- 
senes in his power, and he refused to give up the city 
except on the payment of ten thousand gold pieces. 
The Turk shortly afterwards fell into Baldwin's hands, 
and was put to death. 

Meanwhile the main army of the crusaders was ad- 
vancing towards the Syrian capital, that ancient and 
Arrival of the luxurious city whosc fame had gone over the 
fore the Syrian whole Roman world for its magnificence, its 
Antioch. unbounded wealth, its soft delights, and its 

unholy pleasures. The days of its greatest splendour 
had passed away. Its walls were partially in ruins ; its 
buildings were in some parts crumbling away or had 
already fallen ; but against assailants utterly ignorant 
and awkward in all that relates to the blockade of cities 
it was still a formidable position. Nor could they invest 
it until they had passed the iron bridge (so called from 
its iron-plated gates) of nine stone arches, which spanned 
the stream of the Ifrin at a distance of nine miles from the 
city. This bridge was carried by the impetuous charge 
of Robert of Normandy, aided by the more steady efforts 
of Godfrey ; and in the language of an age which de- 
A. D. 1097. lighted in round numbers, a hundred thou- 
sand warriors hurried across to seize the 
splendid prize which now seemed almost within their 
grasp. 

But the city was in the hands of men who had been 
long accustomed to despise the Greeks, and who had 
Siege of An- not yet learnt to respect the valour of the 
tioch. Latins. Preparing himself for a resolute 

defence, the Seljukian governor Baghasian had sent 
away, as useless, if not mischievous, most of the Chris- 



I097* ^he First Crusade. 6i 

tians within the town ; and the crusading chiefs had 
begun to discuss the prudence of postponing all opera- 
tions till the spring, when Raymond of Toulouse with 
some other chiefs insisted that delay would imply fear, 
and that the imputation of cowardice would ensure the 
paralysis of their enterprise. The city was therefore at 
once invested, so far as the forces of the crusaders could 
suffice to encircle it ; and a siege began which in the 
eyes of the military historian must be absolutely without 
interest, and of which the issue was decided by parox- 
ysms of fanatical vehemence on the one side, and by 
lack not of bravery but of generalship on the other. Of 
the eastern and northern walls the blockade was com- 
plete ; of the west it was partial ; and the failure to invest 
a portion of the western wall, with two out of the five 
gates of the city, left the movements of the Turks in this 
direction free. 

But the besiegers were in no hurry to begin the work 
of death. The wealth of the harvest and the vintage 
spread before them" its irresistible tempta- 
tions, and the herds feeding in the rich pas- besiegers ^^ 
tures seemed to promise an endless feast. 
The cattle, the corn, and the wine were alike wasted 
with besotted folly, while the Turks within the v/alls re- 
ceived tidings, it is said, of all that passed in the crusa- 
ding camp from some Greek and Armenian Christians to 
whom they allowed free egress and ingress. Of this 
knowledge they availed themselves in planning the sal- 
lies by which they caused great distress to the besiegers, 
whose clumsy engines and devices seemed to produce no 
result beyond the .waste of time, and who felt perhaps 
that they had done something when they blocked up the 
gate of the bridge with huge stones dug from the neigh- 
bouring quarries. 



62 The Crusades, CH. in. 

Three months passed away ; and the crusaders found 
themselves not conquerors but in desperate straits from 
famine. The v/inter rains had turned the land round 
their camp into a swamp, and lack of food left them 
^ . . . more and more unable to resist the pesti- 

s amine in the ... 

crusading lential discascs which were rapidly thinning 

^^^' their numbers. A foraging expedition under 

Bohemond and Tancred filled the camp with food : it 
was again recklessly wasted. The second famine scared 
away Tatikios, the lieutenant of the Greek emperor 
Alexios ; but the crusading chiefs were perhaps still more 
disgusted by the desertion of William of Melun, called 
the Carpenter, from the sledge-hammer blows which he 
dealt out in battle. Hunger obtained a victory even 
over the hermit Peter, who was stealing away with 
William of Melun, when he with his companion was 
caught by Tancred and brought back to the tent of Bohe- 
mond. 

For a moment the look of things was changed by the 
arrival of ambassadors from Egypt. To the Fatimite 
caliph of that country the progress of the 
voyr from the crusading arms had thus far brought with it 
of^E^pt.^"^^^'' but little dissatisfaction. The humiliation 
of the Seljukian Turks could not fail to bring 
gain to himself, if the flood of Latin conquests could be 
checked and turned back in time. His generals besieged 
Jerusalem and Tyre ; and when the Fatimite once more 
ruled in Palestine, his envoys hastened to the crusaders* 
camp to announce the deliverance of the Holy Land 
from its oppressors, to assure to all unarmed and peacea- 
ble pilgrims a month's unmolested sojourn in Jerusalem, 
and to promise them his aid during their march, on con- 
dition that they should acknowledge his supremacy 
within the limits of his Syrian empire. 



1098. The First Crusade. ^t^ 

The arguments and threats of the caliph were alike 
thrown away. The Latin chiefs disclaimed ^, . 

•^ Their terms re- 

all interest in the feuds and quarrels of rival jected by the 

sultans and in the fortunes of Mahomedan 
sects. God Himself had destined Jerusalem for the 
Christians, and if any held it who were not Christians, 
these were usurpers whose resistance must be punished 
by their expulsion or their death. The envoys departed 
not encouraged by this answer, and still more perplexed 
by the appearance of plenty and by the magnificence 
of a camp in which they had expected to see a terrible 
spectacle of disorder and misery. 

The resolute persistence of the besiegers convinced 
Baghasian of the need of reinforcements. These were 
hastening to him from Caesarea, Aleppo, and 
other places, when they were cut off by Bohe- between the 
mond and Raymond, who sent a multitude S^'^xuSs ^"^^ 
of heads to the envoys of the Fatimite 
caliph, and discharged many hundreds from their 
engines into the city of Antioch. The Turks had their 
opportunity for reprisals when the arrival of some Pisan 
and Genoese ships at the mouth of the Oron- a. d. 1098. 
tes drew off the greater part of the besieging ^^"^^h. 
army. The crusaders were returning with provisions and 
arms, when their enemies started upon them from an 
ambuscade. The battle was fierce : but the defeat of Ray- 
mond which threatened dire disaster was changed into 
victory on the arrival of Godfrey and the Norman Robert, 
whose exploits equalled or surpassed, if we are to believe 
the story, even those of Arthur, Lancelot, or Tristram. 
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Turks fell. Their bodies 
were buried by their comrades in the cemetery without 
the walls : the Christians dug them up, severed the heads 
from the trunks, and paraded the ghastly trophies on their 



64 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

pikes, not forgetting to send a goodly number to the 
Egyptian caliph, by way of showing how his Seljukian 
friends or enemies had fared. The picture is disgusting; 
but if we shut our eyes to these loathsome details, the 
truth of the history is gone. We are dealing with the 
wars of savages, and it is right that we should know this. 
The next scene exhibits Godfrey and Bohemond in 
fierce quarrel about a splendid tent, which, being intended 
as a gift for the former, had been seized by an Armenian 
chief and sent to the latter. But there was now more 
serious business on hand. Rumour spoke of the near 
Plan of Bohe- approach of a Persian army, and the besieged 
rcduction^o/ ^ Under the plea of wishing to arrange terms 
Antioch. ^f capitulation obtained a truce which they 

sought probably only for the sake of gaining time. The 
days passed by, but no offers were made ; and their dis- 
position was shown by seizing a crusading knight in the 
groves near the city, and tearing his body in pieces. The 
Latins returned with increased fury to the siege : but the 
defence, although more feeble, was still protracted, and 
Bohemond began to feel not only that fraud might suc- 
ceed where force had failed, but that from fraud he might 
reap not safety merely but wealth and greatness. His 
plans were laid with a renegade Christian named Phirouz 
(high in the favour of the governor), with whom he had 
come into contact either during the truce or in some 
other way. By splendid promises he ensured the zeal- 
ous aid of his new ally, and then came forward in the 
council with the assurance that he could place the city 
in their hands, but that he could do this only on condition 
that he should rule in Antioch as Baldwin ruled in Edessa. 
His claim was angrily opposed by the Proven9al Ray- 
mond : but this opposition was overruled, and it was 
resolved that the plan should be carried out at once. 



1098. The First Crusade. 65 

There was need for so doing. Rumours spread within 
the city that some attempt was. to be made to betray 
the place to the besiegers, and hints or open June, 
accusations pointed out Phirouz as the trai- Antbch to 
tor. Like other traitors, the renegade thought Bohemond. 
it best to anticipate the charge by urging that the guards 
of the towers should on the very next day be changed. 
His proposal was received as indubitable proof of his 
innocence and his faithfulness ; but he had made up his 
mind that Antioch should fall that night, and that night 
by means of a rope ladder Bohemond with about sixty 
followers (the ropes broke before more could ascend) 
climbed up the wall. Seizing ten towers of which all the 
guards were killed, they opened a gate, and the Christian 
host rushed in. The banner of Bohemond rose on one 
of the towers ; the trumpets sounded for the onset, and a 
carnage began in which at first the assailants took no 
heed to distinguish between the Christian and the Turk. 
In the awful confusion of the moment some of the be- 
sieged made their way to the citadel, and there shut 
themselves in, ready to resist to the death. Of the rest 
few escaped : ten thousand, it is said, were massacred. 
Baghasian with some friends pafssed out beyond the be- 
siegers' lin^ ; but fainting from loss of blood he fell from 
his horse, and his companions hurried on. A Syrian 
Christian heard his groans, and striking off his head, car- 
ried the prize to the camp of the conquerors. Phirouz 
lived to be a second time a renegade, and to close his 
career as a thief. 

The victory was for the crusaders a change from 
famine to abundance ; and their feasting was accompa- 
nied by the wildest riot and the most filthy Arrival of 
debauchery. But if heedless waste may have Jnde^Te?"^ 
been one of the most venial of their sins, ^°g^- 

F 



66 , T/ie Crusades, ch. hi. 

it was the greatest of their blunders. The reports which 
spoke of the approach of the Persians -were not false. 
The Turks within the citadel suddenly found that they 
were rather besiegers than besieged, and that the Chris- 
tians were hemmed in by the myriads of Kerboga 
prince of Mosul and the warriors of Kilidje Arslan. 
The old horrors of famine were now repeated, but in 
greater intensity ; and the doom of the Latin host seemed 
to be sealed. 

Stephen count of Chartres had deserted his com- 
panions before the fall of the city ; others now followed 
his example, and with him set out on their 

Desertion of „ , ,-,, . „ , 

Stephen of rctum to I.urope. In Fhrygia Stephen en- 
Chartres. countered the emperor Alexios, who was 

marching to the aid of the crusaders, not only with a 
Greek army, but with a force of well appointed pilgrims 
who had reached Constantinople after the departure of 
Godfrey and his fellows. The story told by Stephen 
drove out of his head every thought except that of his 
own safety. The order for retreat was given ; and the 
pilgrim warriors not less than the Greeks were compelled 
to turn their faces westwards. In vain Guy, a brother 
of Bohemond, pleaded his duty and his vow. His words 
were unheeded ; and his indignation wrung from him the 
desperate assertion that if the Divine Being were omni- 
potent. He would not suffer such things to be done. 

In Antioch the crusading soldiers were fast sinking 
into utter despair. Discipline had well nigh come to an 
Desperate end, and so obstinate was their refusal to 
cru^ade^rs^irT bear arms any longer, that Bohemond re- 
Antioch. solvcd to bum them out of their quarters. 

These were consumed by the flames, which spread so 
rapidly as to fill him with fear that he had destroyed not 
only their dwellings but his whole principality. His ex- 



1098. The First Crusade, 67 

periment brought the men back to their duty : but so de- 
spondingly was their work done that but for some signal 
succour the end, it was manifest, must soon come. In 
a credulous age such succour at the darkest hour, if ob- 
tained at all, will generally be obtained through miracle. 
A Lombard priest came forward, to whom St. Ambrose 
of Milan had declared in a vision that the third year of 
the crusade should see the conquest of Jerusalem ; an- 
other had seen the Saviour Himself, attended by his 
Virgin-Mother and the Prince of the Apostles, had heard 
from his lips a stern rebuke of the crusaders for yielding 
to the seductions of pagan women (as if the profession 
of Christianity altered the colour and the guilt of a vice), 
and lastly had received the distinct assurance that in five 
days they should have the help which they needed. The 
hopes of the crusaders were roused ; with hope came a 
return of vigorous energy ; and Peter Barthelemy, chap- 
lain to Raymond of Toulouse, seized the opportunity for 
recounting a vision which was to be something more than 
a dream. To him St. Andrew had revealed ^, ,. 

The disco- 

the fact that in the church of St. Peter lay very of the 
hidden the steel head of the spear which had ° ^ 
pierced the side of the Redeemer as He hung upon the 
cross ; and that Holy Lance should win them victory 
over all their enemies as surely as the spear which im- 
parted irresistible power to the Knight of the Sangreal. 
After two days of special devotion they were to search 
for the long-lost weapon : on the third day the workmen 
began to dig ; but until the sun had set they toiled in 
vain. The darkness of night made it easier for the 
chaplain to play the part which Sir Walter Scott, in the 
'Antiquary,' assigns to Herman Dousterswivel in the ruins 
of St. Ruth. Barefooted and with a single garment the 
priest went down into the pit. For a time the strokes of 



68 The Crusades. ch. hi. 

his spade were heard, and then the sacred rehc was 
found, carefully wrapped in a veil of silk and gold. The 
priest proclaimed his discovery ; the people rushed into 
the church ; and from the church throughout the city 
spread the flame of a fierce enthusiasm. 

Nine or ten months later Peter Barthelemy paid the 
penalty of his life for his fraud or his superstition. A 
Fate of the bribe taken by his master Raymond brought 
discoverer. ^^^ chief into ill odour with his comrades, 
and let loose against his chaplain the tongue of Arnold, 
the chaplain of Bohemond. Raymond had traded on 
fresh visions of his clerk ; and Arnold boldly attacked 
him in his citadel by denying the genuineness of the 
Holy Lance. Peter appealed to the ordeal of fire. He 
passed through the flames, as it seemed, unhurt. The 
bystanders pressed to feel his flesh, and were vehement 
in their rejoicings at the result which vindicated his integ- 
rity. He had really received fatal injuries. Twelve 
days afterwards he died, and Raymond suflered greatly 
in his dignity and his influence. 

The infidel was doomed ; but the crusaders resolved 
to give him one chance of escape. Peter the Hermit was 
Battle of sent as their envoy to Kerhoga to ofler the 

Antioch. alternative of departure from a land which 

St. Peter had bestowed on the faithful, or of baptism 
which should leave him master of the city and territory 
of Antioch. The reply was short and decisive. The 
Turk would not embrace an idolatry which he hated and 
despised, nor would he give up soil which belonged to 
him by right of conquest. The report of the hermit 
A. D. 1098. raised the spirit of the crusaders to fever 
June 28. i^gg^^ . ^^^ on the feast of St. Peter and St. 

Paul they marched out in twelve divisions, in remem- 
brance of the mission of the twelve apostles, while Ray- 



1098. The First Crusade. 69 

mond of Toulouse remained to prevent the escape of the 
Turks shut up in the citadel. The Holy Lance was 
borne by the papal legate, Adhemar, bishop of Puy ; and 
the morning air laden with the perfume of roses was now 
regarded as a sign assuring them of the divine favour. 
They were prepared to see good omens in everything ; 
and they went in full confidence that departed saints 
would, as they had been told, take part in the battle and 
smite down the infidel. The fight (one of brute force on 
the Christian side, of some little skill as well as strength 
on the other) had gone on for some time when such help 
seemed to become needful. Tancred had hurried to the 
aid of Bohemond who was grievously pressed by Kilidje 
Arslan ; and Kerboga was bearing heavily on Godfrey 
and Hugh of Vermandois, when, clothed in white armour 
and riding on white horses, some human forms were seen 
on the neighbouring heights. * The saints are coming to 
your aid,' shouted the bishop of Puy, and the people saw 
in these radiant strangers the martyrs St. George, St. 
Maurice, and St. Theodore. Without awaiting their 
nearer approach the crusaders turned on the enemy with 
a force and fury which were now irresistible. Their 
calvary could do little. Two hundred horses only re- 
mained of the sixty thousand which had filled the plain a 
few months before. But the hedge of spears advanced 
like a wall of iron, and the Turks gave way, Defeat of Ker- 
broke, and fled. It was rout, not jetreat; ^°sa. 
and with the crusaders victory was followed by the 
massacre of men, women, and children. The garrison 
in the citadel at once surrendered. Some declared them- 
selves Christians and were baptized ; those who refused 
to abandon Islam were taken to the nearest . . ^ 

Antioch made 

Mohamedan territory. The city was the a principality 

r -r* T- J J • i_ • 1 • for Bohemond- 

prize of Bohemond ; and m nis keepmg 



70 The Crusades. CH. iii. 

it remained, although Raymond of Toulouse had made 
an effort to seize it by hoisting his banner on the walls. 
The work of pillage being ended, the churches were 
cleansed and repaired, and their altars blazed with 
golden spoils taken from the infidel. The Greek patri- 
arch was again seated on his throne : but he held his 
office at the good pleasure of the Latins, and two years 
later he was made to give place to Bernard, a chaplain 
of the bishop of Puy. 

Ten months had passed away after the conquest of 
Antioch when the main body of the crusading army set 
out on its march to Jerusalem. They had wished to 
depart at once, but their chiefs dreaded to encounter 

waterless wastes at the end of a Syrian sum- 
Mission of 
Hugh of mer, and for the present they were content 

to^Constantl- to Send Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin 
"°P'^- of Hainault as envoys to the Greek em- 

peror, to reproach him with his remissness or his want 
of faith. But the miseries endured by Christians and 
Turks were the pleasantest tidings in the ears of Alexios, 
for in the weakening of both lay his own strength ; and 
he saw with satisfaction the departure of Hugh, not for 
Antioch, but for Europe, whither Stephen of Chartres 
had preceded him. 

Winter came ; but the chiefs still lingered at Antioch. 
Some ;ivere occupied in expeditions against neighbouring 
_ , ^ . , cities : but a more pressing care was the 

Death of Ad- , • , . , • i j , r i j -i- 

hemar, bishop plaguc which punishcd the foulness and dis- 
"^' order of the pilgrims. A band of 1,500 Ger- 

mans, recently landed in strong health and full equip- 
ments, were all, it is said, cut off; and among the vic- 
tims the most lamented perhaps was the papal legate 
Adhemar. A feeling of discouragement was again 
spreading through the army generally. The chiefs 



1098. The First Crusade. 71 

vainly entreated the pope to visit the city where the dis- 
ciples of St. Peter first received the Christian name ; the 
people were disheartened by the animosities and the sel- 
fish or crooked policy of their chiefs. Raymond still 
hankered after the principality of Antioch, and insisted 
that Bohemond and his people, like the men of the 
three trans-jordanic tribes in the days of Joshua, should 
share in the last great enterprise of the crusade. More 
disgraceful than these feuds were the scenes ^. 

11- • 1 r Siege and 

Witnessed durmg the siege and after the capture of 
conquest of Marra. Heedlessness and waste 
soon brought the assailants to devour the flesh of dogs 
and of human beings. The bodies of Turks were torn 
from their sepulchres, ripped up for the gold which they 
were supposed to have swallowed, and the fragments 
cooked and eaten. Of the besieged many slew themselves 
to avoid falling into the hands of the Christians ; to some 
Bohemond, tempted by a large bribe, gave an assurance 
of safety. When the massacre had begun, he ordered 
these to be brought forward. The weak and old he slaugh- 
tered ; the rest he sent to the slave-markets of Antioch. 

A weak attempt made by Alexios to detain 
the crusaders only spurred them to more May'm^^h of 
vigorous efforts. They had already left An- ^^^^ Antk>ch^^ 
tioch, and Laodicea was in their hands, 
when he desired them to await his coming in June. 
The chiefs, remembering the departure of Tatikios 
(p. 62) with his Byzantine troops for Cyprus, re- 
torted that he had broken his compact, and had there- 
fore no further claims on their obedience. Hastening 
on their way, they crossed the plain of Berytos (Bey- 
rout), overlooked by the eternal snows of Lebanon, 
along the narrow strip of land whence the great Pheni- 
cian cities had sent their seamen and their colonists. 



72 The Crusades, ch. hi. 

with all the wealth of the East, to the shores of the Adria- 
tic and the gates of the Mediterranean. Having reached 
Jaffa, they turned inland to Ramlah, a town sixteen miles 
only from Jerusalem. Two days later the crusaders 
came in sight of the Holy City, the object of their long 
pilgrimage, the cause of wretchedness and death to 
millions. As their eyes rested on the scene hallowed to 
them through all the associations of their faith, the cru- 
saders passed in an instant from fierce enthusiasm to a 
humiliation which showed itself in sighs and tears. All 
fell on their knees, to kiss the sacred earth and to pour 
forth thanksgivings that they had been suffered to look 
upon the desire of their eyes. Putting aside their armour 
and their weapons, they advanced in pilgrim's garb and 
with bare feet towards the spot which the Saviour had 
trodden in the hours of his agony and his passion. 

But before their feelings of devotion could be indulged, 
there was other work to be done. The chiefs took up 

their posts on those sides from which the 
lemsakm^^ °^ nature of the ground gave most hope of a 

successful assault. On the northern side 
were Godfrey and Tancred, Robert of Flanders, and 
Robert of Normandy ; on the west Raymond with his 
Provencals. On the fifth day, without siege instruments, 
with only one ladder, and trusting to mere weight, the 
crusaders made a desperate assault upon the walls. 
Some succeeded in reaching the summit, and the very 
rashness of their attack struck terror for a moment into 
their enemies. But the garrison soon rallied, and the 
invaders were all driven back or hurled from the ram- 
parts. The task, it was manifest, must be undertaken 
in a more formal manner. Siege engines must be made, 
and the palm and olive of the immediate neighbourhood 
would not supply fit materials for their construction. 



1096. The First Crusade. 73 

These were obtained from the woods of Shechem, a dis- 
tance of thirty miles ; and the work of preparation was 
carried on under the guidance of Gaston of Beam by 
the crews of some Genoese vessels which had recently 
anchored at Jaffa. So passed away more than thirty 
days, days of intense suffering to the besiegers. At An- 
tioch they had been distressed chiefly by famine : in 
place of this wretchedness they had here the greater 
miseries of thirst. The enemy had carefully destroyed 
every place which might serve as a receptacle of water ; 
and in seeking for it over miles of desolate country they 
Were exposed to the harassing attacks of Moslem horse- 
men. Nor had visions and miracles improved the 
morals or discipline of the camp ; and the ghost of Ad- 
hemar of Puy appeared to rebuke the horrible sins which 
were drawing down upon them the judgments of the 
Almighty. Better service was done by the generosity 
of Tancred, who made up his quarrel with Raymond ; 
and the enthusiasm of the crusaders was again roused 
by the preaching of Arnold (p. 68) and the hermit Peter. 
The narrative of the siege of Jericho in the book of 
Joshua suggested probably the procession in which the 
clergy singing hymns preceded the laity round the walls 
of the city. The Saracens on the ramparts mocked their 
devotions by throwing dirt upon crucifixes : but they 
paid a terrible price for these insults. On the next day 
the final assault began, and was carried on through the 
day with the same monotony of brute force and carnage 
which marked all the operations of this merciless war. 
The darkness of night brought no rest. The actual 
combat was suspended, but the besieged were inces- 
santly occupied in repairing the breaches made by the as- 
sailants, while these were busied in making their dispo- 
sitions for the last mortal conflict. In the midst of that 



74 



The Crusades. ch. hi. 



deadly struggle, when it seemed that the Cross must 
after all go down before the Crescent, a knight was seen 
on Mount Olivet, waving his glistening shield to rouse 
the champions of the Holy Sepulchre to the supreme 
effort. ' It is St. George the Martyr who has come again 
to help us,' cried Godfrey, and at his words the crusaders 
started up without a feeling of fatigue and carried every- 
thing before them. The day, we are told, was Friday, 
the hour was three in the afternoon (the moment at 
which the last cry from the cross announced the accom- 
plishment of the Saviour's passion), when Letold of 
Tournay stood, the first victorious champion of the cross, 
on the walls of Jerusalem. Next to him came, we are 
told, his brother Engelbert : the third was Godfrey. 
Tancred with the two Roberts stormed the gate of St. 
Stephen ; the Provencals climbed the ramparts by lad- 
ders, and the conquest of Jerusalem was achieved. The 

insults offered a little while ago to the cruci- 
■^f th ^[""""^'"^ fixes were avenged by Godfrey's orders in 

the massacre of hundreds ; the carnage in 
the mosque of Omar swept away the bodies of thousands 
in a deluge of human blood. The Jews were all burnt 
alive in their synagogues. The horses of the crusaders, 
who rode up to the porch of the temple, were (so the 
story goes) up to the knees in the loathsome stream ; and 
the forms of Christian knights hacking and hewing the 
bodies of the living and the dead furnished a pleasant 
commentary on the sermon of Urban at Clermont. 

From the duties of slaughter these disci- 
Adoration of pies of the Lamb of God passed to those of 
in the church dcvotion. Bareheaded and barefooted, clad 
chre.^ ^^" ' in a robe of pure white linen, in an ecstasy 

of joy and thankfulness mingled with pro- 
found contrition, Godfrey entered the church of the Holy 



1098. The First Crusade. 75 

Sepulchre and knelt at the tomb of his Lord. With 
groans and tears his followers came, each in his turn, to 
offer his praises for the divine mercy which had vouch- 
safed this triumph to the armies of Christendom. With 
feverish earnestness they poured forth the vows which 
bound them to sin no more, and the excitement of prayer 
and slaughter, perhaps of both combined, led them to 
see everything which might be needed to give effect to 
the closing scene of this appalling tragedy. As the saints 
had arisen from their graves when the Son of Man gave 
up the ghost on Calvary, so the spirits of the pilgrims 
who had died on the terrible journey came to take part 
in the great thanksgiving. Foremost among them was 
Adhemar of Puy, rejoicing in the prayers for forgiveness 
and the resolutions of repentance which promised a new 
era of peace upon earth and of good will towards all men. 
With departed saints were mingled living men who de- 
served all the honour which might be paid to them. The 
backsliding of the hermit Peter was blotted out of the 
memory of those who remembered only the fiery elo- 
quence which had first called them to their now trium- 
phant pilgrimage, and the zeal which had ^ , . 

^ ^ ^ ^ ' Exaltation of 

Stirred the heart of Christendom to cut short Peter the 
the tyranny of the Unbeliever in the birth- 
land of Christianity. The assembled throng fell down 
at his feet, and gave thanks to God who had vouchsafed 
to them such a teacher. His task was done, and in the 
annals of the time Peter is heard of no more. 

On this dreadful day Tancred had spared three hun- 
dred captives to whom he had given a standard as a 
pledge of his protection and a guarantee of , 

their safety. Such misplaced mercy was a deliberate _ 

,1 -. , , J rr-i massacre in 

crime m the eyes of the crusaders. The Jerusalem, 
massacre of the first day may have been aggravated by 



76 The Crusades, CH. iii. 

the ungovernable excitement of victory : but it was re- 
solved that on the next day there should be offered up 
a more solemn and deliberate sacrifice. The men whom 
Tancred had spared were all murdered ; and the wrath 
of Tancred was roused not by their fate but by an act 
which called his honour into question. The butchery 
went on with impartial completeness, old and young, 
decrepit men and women, mothers with their infants, 
boys and girls, young men and maidens in the bloom of 
their vigour, all were mowed down, and their bodies 
mangled until heads and limbs were tossed together in 
awful chaos. A few were hidden away by Raymond of 
Toulouse ; his motive, however, was not mercy, but the 
prospects of gain in the slave-market. After this great 
act of faith and devotion the streets of the Holy City 
were washed by Saracen prisoners ; but whether these 
(like the women servants whom Odysseus strung up like 
sparrows after the slaughter of the suitors) were butchered 
when their work was ended we are not told. 

Four centuries and a half had passed away, when these 
things were done, since Omar had entered Jerusalem as 
Compassion ^ conqueror and knelt outside the church of 
of Omar and Constantine, that his followers might not 

Godfrey. .... . ., . , 

trespass withm it on the privileges of the 
Christians (p. 13). The contrast is at the least marked 
between the caliph of the Prophet and the children of 
the Holy Catholic Church. 

When, the business of the slaughter being ended, the 
chiefs met to choose a king for the realm which they had 

won with their swords, one man only ap- 
Godfrey to peared to whom the crown could fitly be 
ieigmrof offered. Baldwin was lord of Edessa; Bo- 
Jerusalem. hemond ruled at Antioch ; Hugh of Verman- 
dois and Stephen of Chartres had returned to Europe ; 



I099' The First Crusade. 77 

Robert of Flanders cared not to stay; the Norman 
Robert had no mind to forfeit the duchy which he had 
mortgaged ; and Raymond was discredited by his 
avarice, and in part also by his traffic in the visions of 
Peter Barthelemy. But in the city where his Lord had 
worn the thorny crown, the veteran leader who had looked 
on ruthless slaughter without blanching and had borne 
his share in swelling the stream of blood would wear no 
earthly diadem, nor take the title of king. He would 
watch over his Master's grave and the interests of his 
worshippers under the humble guise of Baron and De- 
fender of the Holy Sepulchre ; and as such, a fortnight 
after his election, Godfrey departed to do Battle of As- 
battle with the hosts of the Fatimite caliph <^^°^- 
of Egypt, who now felt that the loss of Jerusalem was 
too high a price for the humiliation of his rivals. The 
conflict took place at Ascalon, and the Fatimite army 
was miserably routed. Godfrey returned to Jerusalem, to 
hang the sword and standard of the sultan before the Holy 
Sepulchre and to bid farewell to the pilgrims who were 
now to set out on their homeward journey. _ * 

TT -I'l 1-1 irr^ Return of 

He retamed, with 300 knights under Tan- the pilgrims 
cred, only 2,000 foot soldiers for the defence '° urope. 
of his kingdom ; and so ended the first act in the great 
drama of the crusades. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE LATIN KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 

The reign of Godfrey fell short by five days even of the 
brief period of a single year ; but it sufficed not only for 
the discomfiture of the Egyptian sultan. Reign of God- 
but for the foundation of a kingdom resting ^^^^' 



78 The Crusades. ch. iv. 

on an elaborate system of carefully defined laws. His 
conflict with the Fatimite caliph was followed by a con- 
flict with Daimbert, bishop of Pisa, the new Latin patri- 
arch of Jerusalem. As legate of the pope Pascal II., 
(Urban had died a fortnight after the fall of the Holy 
City, in other words, before he could hear of 
patriarch of the victory of the crusaders,) Daimbert had 
Jerusalem. invested Godfrey and Bohemond with their 
feudal possessions, and he lost no time in asserting the 
papal claim by demanding immediate recognition as the 
lord of Jerusalem and Jaffa. In each of these cities a 
quarter was at once assigned to him, and the whole was 
to pass into his hands if Godfrey should die without 
children. Such was the compact made by the Baron and 
Defender of the Holy Sepulchre ; but it was not to pass 
unchallenged. 

We have seen Godfrey in the siege and conquest of 
Jerusalem wading with exultation through a sea of human 
blood, seizing infants by their feet and dashing them 
against the walls or whirling them over the battlements, 
or aiding and abetting those who did so. But a few days 
or a few weeks later this man was to be seen seated as an 
impartial judge among men whom he, the king and sove- 
reign, regarded as his equals, setting about the grave task 
of compiling a code of laws on the only basis which can 
serve as the foundation of true constitutional government, 
— the sanction, namely, of the laws by the men who are 
to obey them. There was little enough of freedom in 
the feudal system ; and the system embodied in the code 
Assize of Jeru- popularly known as the Assize of Jerusalem 
salem. ^a.s but a reflection of the general body of 

law in force throughout Western Christendom. Still the 
legislation of Godfrey and his successors is full of in- 
struction, not merely as showing with what success the 



iioo. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusahm. 79 

system of one country may be transferred to another, 
but even as throwing a clearer light on the working of 
feudalism in Western Europe. The story went that the 
code thus drawn up with the advice of the Latin pilgrims 
was deposited in the Holy Sepulchre and was lost with 
the fall of the city. The tale lies open to grave suspicion. 
The whole code would form no heavy weight for a beast 
of burden, while it would be an object utterly valueless 
in the eyes of the Mahomedan conquerors. It is of more 
importance to remark that the traditions which this lost 
record was supposed to have preserved continued to 
guide the Latin principalities of the East, until in A. D. 
1369, having undergone a final revision, they became the 
laws of the Latin kingdom of Cyprus. 

The legislation of this code on the relation of vassals 
to their overlords, on the subject of wardship, 

/-.j.-i 1. <--ii 11 Judicial courts 

of judicial combats, of villenage and slavery, instituted by 
may have been more minute and definite ^^"'^^'^^y- 
than the laws of Western Europe ; but it laid down no 
new principles. A more important feature is to be found 
in the judicial courts which owed their institution to the 
first Latin king of Jerusalem. In the court of the barons 
or peers the king himself was the president ; in that of 
the burgesses he was represented by the viscount, and it 
is in this court that we find the popular element which 
was hereafter to give a new character to the history of 
Europe. It consisted of a number of the citizens chosen 
for their trustworthiness and their wisdom. Popular 
election, indeed was wanting ; but an assembly of bur- 
gesses sworn to judge according to the laws in all the 
concerns of their equals was a germ from which good 
fruit might have been looked for, if the seed had been 
sown in fitting soil. Not less wise was the institution of 
a third court which dealt with Syrian Christians through 



8o 77ie Crusades. CH. iv. 

the Syrians themselves. But although the legislative 
work of Godfrey and his successors was not wholly in 
vain, it was an exotic which could live only with the 
ascendency of the Latins. It was sown in blood, nursed 
amid storms, and uprooted by the tempest which swept 
the Western Christians from Palestine. 

The death of Godfrey raised in the patriarch Daimbert 
hopes which were to be disappointed. The subjects of 
Godfrey had no mind to be governed by a 
jLiiy i8. * priest, and Tancred offered the throne to 
aldwm I. Bohemond. But Raymond was now a cap- 
tive, and popular favour inclined to Baldwin, Godfrey's 
brother, the lord of the Mesopotamian Edessa. Resign- 
ing his principality to his kinsman of the same name, 
Baldwin hastened to Jerusalem, and was there chosen 
king. At first Daimbert held aloof in sullen displeasure ; 
but his opposition was at length overcome, and the 
A D. iioo— patriarch poured the anointing oil over the 
1118. sovereign. Baldwin reigned for eighteen 

years, and long before those years had come to an end, 
the great chiefs of the first crusade had all passed away. 
In his second year he was compelled to resist an Egyp- 
tian invasion ; but his army was defeated in a battle near 
A. D. iioi. Ramlah, in which Stephen earl of Chartres 
Death of ^g^g taken prisoner and slain. He had been 

Stephen of ^ 

Chartres. driven back from Europe by the reproaches 

of his wife Adela, a daughter of the Norman conqueror 
of England, and in her judgment at least he thus re- 
A. D. 1105. deemed his fame. Four years later Raymond 
Ra^mon^d of of Toulousc died in old age on the sea-coast, 
Toulouse. having satisfied probably neither his ambi- 

tion nor his avarice. He had conquered Tortosa and 
there founded a principality : but the possession of Tri- 
polis which he had coveted was reserved for his son 



IIOO-I2. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. 8i 

Bertrand. Bertrand enjoyed his new fief for two years 
only, and was succeeded by his son Pontius, to whom 
Tancred left his widow as a bride. 

The return of Bohemond to Antioch was soon followed 
by his capture in a petty expedition for the enlargement 
of his principality ; but his place was well a. d. 1103. 
filled by Tancred ; and when after two years care'e^r of Bo- 
of imprisonment Bohemond came back in hemond. 
spite of all the efforts of Alexios to get possession of his 
person, he found himself master not only of Antioch but 
of Laodicea and Apameia. In the open war which fol- 
lowed with the Byzantine emperor, Bohemond was de- 
feated by land, but with the aid of the Pisans was victo- 
rious at sea. His thoughts were running probably on 
another crusade when his help was invoked by Daimbert 
the patriarch of Jerusalem, who took refuge at his court 
from what he chose to call the tyranny of Baldwin. 
With the prelate, Bohemond sailed for Italy, 
leaving Tancred to rule at Antioch. His 
name had gone before him, and Philip I. the French 
king hastened to invite to his court the most redoubtable 
of the champions of Christendom. Bohemond became 
the son-in-law of Philip, and sailed again for 
the land of his old exploits with 5,000 horse 
and 40,000 foot. Once more he attacked Durazzo ; but 
the bribes of Alexios foiled his enterprise, 
and Bohemond was constrained to content 
himself with a treaty which admitted him to the imperial 
presence as the peer of the Byzantine sovereign. He went 
back to Italy and was making ready the next 
year for his return to Antioch when death ' ' ^°^' 
cut short his vehement and stormy career. Tancred re- 
mained lord of his principality. He was still in the prime 
of his manhood, and a disposition which, as compared 

G 



82 The Crusades. ch. ii. 

with that of his fellows, was generous and 

A. D. III2. . - , . , . . . - 

Death of merciful, might promise a long time of 

righteous government for his people. But 
before three years had passed Tancred died childless, of a 
wound received in battle, and left his power to his kins- 
man Roger. 

The only man who had derived permanent benefit 
from these crusading expeditions was the man to whom 
Effect of the it might be supposed that they had caused 
the^Byzlmine the greatest mischief and annoyance. It was 
empire. Qf ^^ f^j-gj- importance to the safety of the 

Byzantine empire that the Turks should be drawn away 
from the nearer countries of Bithynia and Phrygia. This 
great result the crusade fully achieved. The capital of 
the Turkish sultan of Roum was transferred from Nice to 
the remote and obscure city of Cogni (Iconium, Ikonion ;) 
the authority of the Greek emperor was re-established 
over all the maritime regions of Asia Minor ; and the 
existence of his empire prolonged for nearly 350 years. 
But Alexios, with his crafty and scheming temper to 
which incessant occupation in tasks serious or trifling 
brought a sense of self-importance, was pre-eminently a 
man to think more of annoyances than of grave disasters. 
For him accordingly it was grief of spirit that Latin chiefs 
should fail to do him homage for distant conquests, the 
possession of which could bring him no good ; and he 
had a standing ground of quarrel and complaint in the 
trouble given or the alarm caused by the hosts of pilgrims 
which Europe poured out upon the East as soon as the 
tidings were brought that Jerusalem was in the hands of 
Fresh swarms the Christians. It certainly cannot be said 
of pilgrims. ^^^ ^^ pilgrims left Alexios much time for 
idleness. A rabble more disorderly than that of Walter 
the Penniless followed the armies of Godfrey an^ his 



iioo. The Latin Kingdo7n of Jerusalem. Zt^ 

confederates. These were Lombards headed by the 
archbishop of Milan ; and when Alexios insisted on their 
crossing the Bosporos before more should come, they 
broke out into open war and attempted to storm the 
quarter of Blachernai. These were followed by a better 
appointed force under the count of Blois and the consta- 
ble of the emperor of Germany, who spoke with confi- 
dence of attacking Bagdad and destroying the caliphat. 
But the dress of the Greek clergy in some Phrygian town 
excited their wrath. Priests and others were massacred ; 
and the sequel of the expedition was as disastrous as 
that of the hordes cut off by Kilidje Arslan at the hill of 
bones (p. 42). No better success attended the compa- 
nies gathered under the standards of the count of Nevers, 
the count of Poitiers, and Hugh of Vermandois. With 
the last of these chiefs came hundreds of ladies who 
looked for nothing less than a triumphal march from 
Constantinople to Jerusalem : for almost all of these a 
journey of unspeakable misery came to an 
end in the slave-markets of Bagdad and Death of Hugh 
other great cities of the East. The counts 
of Nevers and of Poitiers reached Antioch on foot with a 
few followers : Hugh of Vermandois managed to escape 
to Tarsus, and there he died. 

An endless series of wars, some of which were forced 
upon him while others were mere blunders, was to occupy 
the life of Alexios to its close. Throughout ^ ," , 

, . Death of the 

it may be said that successful dissimulation emperor 
and even successful treachery brought him 
greater delight than the most decisive victory in the 
field. Some of his worst faults are recorded as consti- 
tuting his greatest merits in the turgid pages of his 
daughter Anna : but she and her mother Irene were to 
learn, as he lay almost at the last gasp, that they too 



84 The Crusades. ch. ii. 



A. D. IIlE 



could be sufferers by his astuteness. He al- 
lowed his son John to frustrate at the last 
moment their most cherished scheme, and his wife bade 
him farewell with the plain-spoken phrase, ' You die, as 
you have lived, — a hypocrite.' 

While the days of Alexios were drawing to an end at 
Constantinople, Baldwin king of Jerusalem was dying in 
Egypt, whither he had gone in the hope of crippling the 
power of the Fatimite sultan. His body was embalmed, 
brought back to Jerusalem, and laid in the sepulchre of 
Godfrey. On the day of his funeral the great council 
met to elect his successor. His brother 

A. D. 1118 — 

1131- . Eustace was absent in Europe ; and the 

kingofjerii- crown was offered to his kinsman, Baldwin 
saiem. ^^ Bourg, who had been recommended for 

the post by the first king, and whose claim was urged by 
Joceline of Courtenay. In his gratitude Baldwin in- 
vested Joceline with the principality of Edessa. 

It may be enough to say of this king that during his 
reign, as in that of his predecessor, the limits of the 
Latin power were being gradually extended, the new 
acquisitions being bestowed on princes who held them 
as fiefs of the kingdom of Jerusalem. After a siege of 
six weeks Sidon had fallen, in the days of the first Bald- 
win. In this blockade the Latins were aided 

A. D. II15. 

Conquest of to good purposc by the fleet and army of the 
Norwegian Siward. Nine years later the 
Venetian doge Michael came to worship at the Holy 
Sepulchre, and offered the help of his fleet for the reduc- 
tion of Ascalon or Tyre, The choice fell upon Tyre, and 
the doge stipulated that one half of that city should 
remain to himself in absolute sovereignty, 

A. D. II24. _ & y » 

Conquest of while the Venetians should also have a 
church, a street, and other privileges in Je- 



1 1 15-62. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. 85 

rusalem. The siege lasted five months, when the still 
great, and once peerless, Phenician city was compelled 
to yield and become the seat of a Christian archbishop- 
ric. But if the crusading dominions were thus enlarged, 
it is perhaps of little use to speak of the greatest extent 
reached by a kingdom almost as restless and as change- 
ful as the sea. 

The third successor of Godfrey on the throne of Jeru- 
salem was Fulk of Anjou, whose lot on the whole was 
more tranquil than that of his predecessors, 

^ ^ A. D. II31 — 

although in attempting to aid Raymond 1144- 
count of Tripoli against Zenghis, sultan of Jerusalem. ° 
Aleppo, he was shut up in the castle of Barin 
or Montferrat, and compelled to purchase his safety with 
gold. He was succeeded by his son Bald- 
win, a boy thirteen years of age, who was 1162. 
soon to see what the prowess of the West ^ ^^° 
could do in a second crusade. The feuds of the Chris- 
tian princes of Antioch and Edessa gave to Zenghis an 
opportunity of attacking the principalities of Joceline of 
Courtenay. For eighteen days the inhabitants of Edessa 
awaited in terrible suspense the result of a siege in which 
for them surrender meant death. The deeds of Godfrey 
and his fellows on the fall of Jerusalem were still fresh 
in the memory of their enemies, and the heralds of 
Zenghis were not slack in teaching his men that con- 
quest brought with it the right of pillage. The Turks 
learnt the lesson in spirit as well as in letter ; 

A. D. II45. 

and on the fall of Edessa the deeds of blood Fail of 
and cruelty showed that Moslems might be 
apt pupils in the horrible school in which the Christians 
had attained a standard of ideal excellence. The story 
told once needs not to be told again. The murder of 
Zenghis awakened in Joceline of Edessa the hope that 



86 The Crusades. ch. v. 

the lost city might be recovered. The attempt issued in 
a second disaster ; and nothing remained but an appeal 
to the religious enthusiasm of Western Christendom. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SECOND CRUSADE. 



What Peter the Hermit had been for the first crusade, 
that St. Bernard was for the second ; and on Peter, 
Bernard the Bernard lookcd down with undisguised con- 
apostle of the tempt. The failure of that first great enter- 
second cru- ^ . ° . 
sade. prise he ascribes to the wretched councils of 

the fanatical guide whose name he supposes that his 
hearers or correspondents have sometimes heard. To 
the holy war which he felt himself called upon to kindle, 
he looked forward without the least misgiving, and the 
proud confidence which he feels and everywhere ex- 
presses may be taken as a special characteristic of West- 
ern monachism in its palmiest days. While the monks 
of the East were losing themselves more and more in the 
mists of dreamy or useless speculation, the cell of the 
Western monk became an imperial chamber from which 
went forth the letters which were to cheer or counsel the 
Vicar of Christ, to rebuke kings and statesmen, to warn 
and guide the faithful, to recall the wanderer to the fold, 
and to confound the unbeliever. For these high offices 
he had a commission higher than that of any earthly 
authority. They fell within the range of his duty as the 
member of a society, the soldier of an army, which was 
to fight the battles of the King of kings. He was the 
knight sheathed in the impenetrable armour of the Spirit, 
and he bore in his hand the invincible sword of faith. 
He had learnt the language, and transferred to his 



1115-1162. The Second ■ Crusade. 87 

monastic life the images and terms, of feudalism. For 
him action was everything ; solitude with its essential 
idea of rest was in comparison of this as nothing. He 
fled from his home to the cloister, because he could there 
fight better against material and spiritual corruption. 
He chose the most severe schools which he could find 
for the exercise of his self-discipline. He withdrew from 
these into wilder deserts, if they failed to meet his ideal 
of self-mortification. He established what he called a 
reform, if existing rules appeared to him too indulgent 
to human weakness. Such was the life of St. Bernard. 
He was from first to last a crusader, and the most per- 
tinacious and successful of his crusades was against the 
peace and quiet of his own family. His mother had 
made a secret vow to devote all her children to God ; 
and Bernard held it among the first of his duties to see 
that her vow should be fulfilled. Power, wealth, and 
dignity in the world were within his grasp : he threw 
them all aside. The holy house of Molesme had sent 
forth some of its m.ost austere members under an 
Englishman named Stephen Harding, and these found 
a ruder and more savage home on the borders of Cham- 
pagne and Burgundy, at Citeaux, the cradle of the great 
Cistercian order. Thither came Bernard in his early 
manhood, and there he remained until he in his turn 
went forth to found a new house in the gloomy and ill- 
famed valley to which he gave a name associated for 
ever with his memory. Here at Clairvaux his father 
took the habit of a monk, and died in his arms. His 
brothers and his sisters had made their profession before 
him, — not all without a struggle ; but who should resist 
the Divine Will? The wife of one of his brothers re- 
fused to make the sacrifice of her husband's love : but a 
sudden illness convinced her of the perils of disobe- 



88 The Crusades. CH. v. 

dience, and like her husband she found her home in a 
convent. 

This was the man whom the tidings of the fall of 
Edessa filled with profound emotion. He could no more 
doubt the duty of ridding the Holy Land of 

Sources of . ' o j 

Bernard's in- Unbelievers than he could call into question 
his own mission against all ungodliness and 
sin. But if it had been right to rush to the rescue of the 
Holy Sepulchre when it was still in the hands of the 
infidel, it was still more right, it was indispensably ne- 
cessary, to keep that sacred place and the land in which 
it lay from falling again under the old despotism. For 
Bernard, when his mind was once fixed on any enter- 
prise, there could be no rest, as there could also be no 
measure in the vehemence of his eloquence. The 
energy with which he espoused the cause of 

A. D. II30. . . 11- 

Innocent II. agamst a rival pope had m- 

vested him with an influence second to that of no other 

man of his age ; and he had wielded this pow- 

' er with tremendous effect against Abelard, 

the keenest and most daring thinker of Latin Christendom. 

Three years before the council of Sens, which under 

the direction of Bernard condemned the propositions or 

heresies of Abelard, died the French king 

Death of ^ . ,,^ ' ^ , f 

Louis VI. of Louis VL, surnamed the Fat, the monarch 
France. ^j^ ^^ -j^^ might be called) of a scanty king- 

dom the enlargement of which would best be promoted 
by advantageous marriages. Of such ap opportunity 
Louis the Fat eagerly availed himself when William, 
lord of Poitou and Guienne, the wide region lying be- 
tween the Loire and the Adour, offered his daughter and 
heiress Eleanor as the wife of the heir to the French 

crown. By right of this marriage Louis VII. 

found himself on the death of his father and 



1 1 30-1 146. The Second Crusade. 89 

of his father-in-law possessed of a far larger kingdom 
and greater resources than he had expected to inherit ; 
and he might have made it the business of his life to 
guard and extend his dominions at home, had he not 
felt himself suddenly called to take up his cross and 
follow the example of his great-uncle, Hugh of Verman- 
dois. In a war with Theobald, count of Champagne, he 
had stormed and set fire to the castle of 

A. D. II42. 

Vitry. To escape from his soldiers the peo- 
ple had taken refuge in a neighbouring church. To this 
building the flames spread, and all within it, men, 
women, and children, 1,300, it is said, in number, were 
burnt. The sight of the scorched and charred bodies 
filled the king with horror and grief: sickness followed, 
and he determined to work out his repentance by lead- 
ing his armies to the Holy Land. His remorse was 
quickened by the eloquence of Bernard, and Louis put 
on the blood-red cross in the council of Vezelay. 

From this council the pope, Eugenius III., was absent. 
His place was more than supplied by his friend and 
adviser, whose voice stirred the depths of 

. A. D. II46. 

every heart. The letter of Eugenius held out Easter. Coun- 
to the crusaders all the promises which had ^ ° "^ ^^' 
been assured to them by Urban at Clermont, and warned 
them against the vices which had brought disaster and 
disgrace on the arms of Christendom. But for the mo- 
ment every other feeling than that of fierce yearning for 
conflict was swept away by the furious torrent of Bernard's 
oratory. He preached to the Knights Templars, the 
members of that splendid order which was already 
astonishing the world with its valour and its speech of 
haughtiness. Associated at first for the pro- E^rn^"^*^- 
tection of pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, they had 
established themselves in the Holy City itself, and re- 



90 



The Crusades. CH. v. 



The Knights ceived from Baldwin II. some ground to 
lempiars. ^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ Temple ; and the mosque of 
Omar, purified from its defilements, became the church 
of the order. The fiery warriors who professed them- 
selves the humble guardians of the Holy Sepulchre 
needed no stimulus of rhetoric to spur them on : and the 
rhetoric of Bernard was fierce enough to stir even the 
most peaceable. In this new philosophy butchery was 
the surest means of grace, and carnage imparted indeli- 
ble sanctity. * The Christian who slays the unbeliever 
in the Holy War is sure of his reward, more sure if he is 
slain. The Christian glories in the death of the Pagan, 
because by it Christ is glorified ; by his own death both 
he himself and Christ are still more glorified.' The flood- 
gates of enthusiasm were once again opened wide ; and 
the scenes of the council of Clermont were reproduced 
with little change. Accompanied by the French king 
who wore the cross conspicuously on his dress, Bernard 
mounted a wooden platform and addressed the impas- 
sioned multitude. His speech was scarcely ended when 
all with one voice cried aloud for the cross. The saint 
gave or scattered the badges which had been provided. 
When these were exhausted, he tore up his own dress to 
furnish more. 

But if Louis was eager to depart, Conrad 
Reluctance of of Germany hung back. The Emperor felt 

Conrad empe- . 

ror of Germany more anxious about the reduction of refrac- 
sade. " tory princes than for the slaughter of un- 

known infidels. Christmas came ; and at 
Spires first, afterwards at Ratisbon, Bernard strove to 
impress on him the paramount duty of the crusade. 
Conrad promised to give his answer on the following 
day ; and on that day Bernard preached a sermon, 
painting in awful colours the terrors of the Great Assize 



1 147' The Second Crusade. 91 

when all the kindreds of the nations should be gathered 
before the judgment-seat of the Son of Man. He im- 
plored the emperor to think of the account which he 
would then have to give, and of the infinite shame and 
endless agony which would be his portion, if he should 
then stand convicted of unjust stewardship. Conrad 
was melted to tears, and promised to take the cross. 
Bernard was prepared for him and for all, and fastened 
the badge on their shoulders at once. Taking from the 
altar the consecrated banner, he delivered it to the em- 
peror, and the hand of God was seen in the crowd of 
thieves and ruffians who thronged to enlist themselves as 
champions of the cross. Four months later 
Louis welcomed the pope at St. Denys, and Whitsuntide. 
received from Eug-enius at the altar the ^'^^.""S of 

° ^ Louis VII. and 

wallet and staff" of the pilgrim, with the the pope at St. 
banner which was to lead him to victory. 
The wishes of the devout turned naturally to Bernard 
rather than to others of whose earnestness they could not 
have equal assurance ; but to their prayers that he would 
head the enterprise he replied that he was no general 
and that they must find some one to lead them who was 
skilled in the handling of earthly armies. 

When the followers of Peter the Hermit and Walter 
the Penniless began their march along the Rhinelands, 
their crusading zeal vented itself first in 
horrible cruelties practised on the Jews (p. the Jews stir- 
40). That vile example was followed by SonkLd^iph! 
the bands now gathered round the standard 
of the emperor. The appetite for blood was whetted by 
the wolfish bowlings of the monk Rodolph ; and the 
spell of bigotry enlisted on his side a man otherwise 
well deserving the reverence of all ages, Peter the Ven- 
erable, abbot of Clugny. But the fanaticism of Bernard 



92 The Crusades, ch. v. 

could not fasten itself on men against whom 
ISard!^'^ ^y not even a semblance of wrong could be 

charged; and he refused to punish them 
now for the crimes of their forefathers in the days of 
Pontius Pilate. ' God has punished the Jews,' he said, 
' by their dispersion ; it is not for man to punish them by 
murder.* Rodolph was sent back to his monastery : 
but it was no easy task to repress the fury of a multitude 
already drunk with the blood of hundreds of victims in 
all the great Rhine cities. 

Conrad and Louis had met at Mainz. With Louis 
came his wife Eleanor ; and here he was joined by the 

counts of Toulouse, Nevers, Flanders and 
crusaders Other chiefs of the crusade, among these 

""dlnd'Louis. being, it is said, Robert de Mowbray and the 

earl of Warren and Surrey from England. 
The story of the enterprise is soon told. The numbers 
of the host were vast, but numbers, never easily ascer- 
tained, are least of all to be depended upon in such expe- 
ditions as these. The order of disciplined armies may 
have lessened the perils and lightened the hardships of 
the passage across Europe ; and the troop of women who 
with spear and shield, headed by the Golden-footed Dame, 
marched on, as they thought, to conquest, may have 
congratulated themselves on the pleasantness of their 
task. The real danger began when they had passed from 
Europe into Asia. The suspicions of Conrad 
Conrad to had been soon and vehemently excited 

peroVMa^iS'el against the Greek emperor Manuel, grand- 
at Constanti- gon of Alexios. Thcse suspicions were so 

nople. ^ 

much strengthened before he reached Con- 
stantinople that he refused all interviews with him and 
crossed the Bosporus without coming into his presence. 
The French king was more complaisant ; but if he was 



1 147* ^^^ Second Crusade. 93 

satisfied with the welcome given to him by Manuel in 
person, he was alarmed and indignant at the 

, , _ . . . Supposed 

news that the Byzantnie sovereign was m treachery of 
secret correspondence with the Turkish sul- ^""^ " 
tan of Cogni (Iconium, Ikonion). His indignation was 
fully shared by his army ; and while some held that the 
paramount duty which called them to Palestine should 
overbear the avenging of all private wrongs, others in- 
sisted that a power which had allowed the Holy Sepulchre 
and the Holy Land itself to slip from its grasp, and had 
only placed hindrances in the way of the pilgrims and 
champions of the cross, should be swept utterly away. 

For the present the storm was lulled ; and the crusa- 
ders went on their way, to find that the guides with which 
Manuel had furnished them led them into _ . 

Disastrous 

arid deserts or betrayed them directly to the march of Con- 

1,1111 1 1 rad and Louis. 

enemy. Conrad had already lost thousands 
or tens of thousands in Lykaonia, when the French king, 
who had been cheated with false tidings of his trium- 
phant progress, received on the shores of the Askanian 
lake (p. 57) the news of his great disaster. Conrad 
himself soon followed the miserable fugitives who had 
told his dismal story, and the two sovereigns resolved to 
strike off from the beaten path and make their way 
through the lands bordering the eastern shores of the 
Egean Sea. They had advanced as far as the Lydian 
Philadelphia, when the threatening appearance of things 
impelled many to return to Constantinople, and Conrad 
himself embarked near Ephesus. Louis with his people 
pressed on to the banks of the Meander, where the Turks 
who hastened to attack them were signally defeated. 
This defeat was more than avenged in the mountain 
passes beyond Laodicea whence after fearful slaughter 
the French reached the Pamphylian Attaleia. From this 



94 The Crusades. CH. v. 

seaport it was proposed that all, whether soldiers or 
pilgrims, should go by sea to Antioch. It was decided 
that the latter only should take ship, as Louis urged 
that the warriors ought to follow in the steps of the con- 
querors of Jerusalem. But the ships promised by the 
governor of Attaleia proved to be wholly insufficient for 
this purpose. The king embarked with his army, and 
the pilgrims with the sick were left in charge of the count 
of Flanders. The guard was inadequate ; the sick were 
murdered by the people of Attaleia ; the Turks bore 
down hardly on the pilgrims. The count of Flanders 
escaped by sea, and seven thousand miserable wanderers 
struggled onwards on the road by which they hoped to 
reach Jerusalem. Their journey was soon ended by the 
martyrdom which according to the promise of Urban and 
Eugenius was to ensure their salvation. 

The arrival of the French king with his forces at An- 
tioch caused no slight alarm to the Turks of Csesarea 
y. . r , and Aleppo. But although he was .earnestly 

French king prcsscd to take advantage of their dismay by 

striking a sudden blow, nothing could dis- 
suade him to put off his journey to Jerusalem ; and the 

entreaties of Eleanor, who was well content 

A. D. II48. 

March. to Stay where she was, excited in him min- 

gled feelings of resentment and suspicion. 
After disasters so terrible his entrance into Jerusalem 
bore too much likeness to a triumph ; and after a council 
with Conrad, who had reached Ptolemais, the project of 
rescuing Edessa, which had been the very 

Resokition to . 

attack Damas- purpose of the crusadc, was for the time 
*'"^' abandoned for the siege, and, as it was 

hoped, the conquest, of the more important and nearer 
city of Damascus. 
With the aid of the Knights of the Temple and of St. 



1 1 48. The Second Crusade. 95 

John, the siege of this city was prosecuted g.^ ^ ^^ 
with a skill and vigour which seemed to Damascus. 
leave no doubt of the result. The Damas- 
cenes were in despair, and not a few turned their 
thoughts to flight as the only means of safety : but with 
incredible infatuation the king of the French and the 
German emperor took counsel not for the completion of 
the enterprise but for the disposal of the city when it 
should have been conquered. The decision that it 
should be given to Thierry, count of Flanders, roused 
the indignation of the barons of Palestine, who now 
scrupled not to add treachery to the long catalogue of 
their crimes. Bribed by the Turks, they as- ^ 

■' •' Ireachery of 

sured the sovereigns that they would have the barons of 
better success by attacking the city from an- 
other quarter than from that on which their toil had been 
all but rewarded by its capture. Abandoning their for- 
mer position in the rich gardens before the town, they 
soon found themselves on barren soil, with scanty sup- 
plies or 'none, and with a hopeless task before them. It 
was easier to suspect than to punish the treachery of their 
advisers ; and possibly on account of this treachery the 
proposal that they should attack Ascalon ^ , , 

^ ^ ^ Retreat of the 

was rejected. The army retreated to Jeru- army to Jeru- 
salem. Conrad went back with the remnant 
of his troops to Europe. A year later his example was 
followed by the French king and his wife, of whose con- 
duct Louis had formed suspicions fully ^ ., 

I* allure of the 

justified by certain judgments pronounced crusade. 
by her in Provencal Courts of Love. Only 
a few months more had passed before he obtained a 
divorce on the plea of consanguinity, and Eleanor trans- 
ferred her vast inheritance to her second husband the 
Norman duke Henry, afterwards Henry H. of England. 



96 The Crusades. ch. v. 

So ended in utter shame and ignominy the second 

crusade. The event seemed to give the he 

against St. to the glowing promises and prophecies of 

St. Bernard. So vast had been the drain 

of population to feed this holy war that, in the phrase of 

an eye-witness, the cities and castles were empty, and 

scarcely one man was left to seven women ; and now it 

was known that the fathers, the husbands, the sons, or 

the brothers of these miserable women would see their 

earthly homes no more. The cry of anguish charged 

Bernard with the crime of sending them forth on an 

errand in which they had done absolutely nothing and 

had reaped only wretchedness and disgrace. For a 

time Bernard himself was struck dumb : but 

His answer. 

he soon remembered that he had spoken with 
the authority of God and of his vicegerent, and that the 
guilt or failure must lie at the door of the pilgrims. 
Like those who had gone before them, these men had 
given loose to their passions and filled their camps with 
debauchery and confusion ; and such abominations the 
Divine Righteousness could never tolerate. Nay, Ber- 
nard could even see now the folly, if not the iniquity, of 
allowing thieves and murderers to take part in an enter- 
prise in which only the devout and faithful were worthy 
to share. But such considerations were too cold to 
satisfy permanently the temper of the age. The thoughts 
of the many, if not of the few, went back into the old 
channel, when the monk John declared that the slaugh- 
tered pilgrims had died with the exulting joy of martyrs 
at the thought of their deliverance from a wicked world ; 
and that from the lips of St. Peter and St. John them- 
selves he had the assurance that the ranks of fallen 
angels had been filled up with the spirits of those who 
had died as champions and pilgrims of the cross whether 



1 15 1. The Loss of Jerusalem. 97 

in the Holy Land or on the journey across , 

• -I- -r. A. D. 1153. 

the intervening countries. For Bernard Death of 
also the saints and angels> he said, were 
impatiently waiting. Five years later it was in his 
power to add that their desires and his had been ful- 
filled. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE LOSS OF JERUSALEM. 



The second crusade not only failed in its purpose : it did 
nothing towards the maintenance of the waning ascen- 
dency of the Latins. Even victories brought ,^. . . 

■' , ° Misuse of vic- 

with them no solid result, and in not a few tory by the cm- 
instances victory was misused with a folly 
closely allied to madness. The success of Joceline of 
Courtenay in a battle with Noureddin, son of Zenghis 
and sultan of Aleppo, might have recovered for him his 
lost city of Edessa : he chose rather to indulge in the 
dangerous luxury of insult, and the renewed 
efforts of the enemy were rewarded by the Death of joce- 
capture of Joceline, his imprisonment and Jj^^ °^ Courte- 
death. His widow, by the advice of Bald- 
win HI., king of Jerusalem, surrendered to the Greek 
emperor for a stipulated sum such places as still re- 
mained in her possession ; and the dangers gathering 
round the Latin kingdom were seen in an inroad of 
Turcomans who reached the Mount of Olives. 

This inroad was, it is true, severely punished. The 
king was absent with his army : but the knights of the 
military orders who were in Jerusalem led 
out such of the people as could be got under ff Asca^lon. ^^^^ 
arms and set fire to the camp of the enemy. 

H 



98 The Crusades. ch. vi. 

These on their retreat were intercepted by Baldwin, and 
in the conflict 5,000 of their number, it is said, were slain. 
The tide seemed to have turned again in 
July ^^^^ favour of the Christians, when, after an ob- 

stinate siege which at one moment was all 
but abandoned, the city of Ascalon fell into their hands. 
But the change was one of appearance only. The 
interminable series of wars, or rather of forays and re- 
., prisals, went on ; and amidst such contests 

A. D. I162. Al- ^ ^ 

meric, king of the life of Baldwin closed m early manhood, 
jerusaem. ^^ ^^^ thirty-three years of age: but in 

that short time he had won such love as his subjects had 
to bestow, together with the admiration of his enemies. 
He died childless, and although some opposition was 
made to the choice, his brother Almeric was elected to 
fill his place. 

Almost at the beginning of his reign the affairs of the 

Latin kingdom became comphcated with those of Egypt ; 

and the Christians are seen fighting by the 

Relations of , , .. *^ ^ . 

Almeric with side of One Mahomcdan race, tribe, or taction 
slypt and" ° against another. The divisions of Islam may 
Aleppo. j^g^^g turned less on points of theology, but 

they were scarcely less bitter than those of Christendom ; 
and Noureddin, the sultan of Aleppo, eagerly embraced 
the opportunity which gave him a hold on the Fatimite 
caliph of Egypt, when Shawer the grand vizier of that 
caliph came into his presence as a fugitive. A soldier 
named Dargham had risen up and deposed him, and the 
deposition of the vizier was the deposition of the real 
ruler, for the Fatimite caliphs themselves 
A. D. 741 771. ^^^^ ^^^ merely the puppets which the 

Merovingian kings had been in the days of Charles Mar- 
tel and Pepin, 

Among the generals of Noureddin were Shiracouh and 



1 1 63. The Loss of Jerusalem. 99 

his nephew Saladin (Salah-ud-deen) of the shepherd tribe 
oftheKoords. These Noureddin despatched Mission of 
into Egypt to efifect the restoration of Shawer. Sd'^sXdin 
His enemy Dargham had sought by lavish ^""^^ Egypt. 
offers to buy the aid of the Latins : but the terms were 
still unsettled when he was worsted in a battle by Shi- 
racouh and slain. Shawer again sat in his old seat ; 
but with success came the fear that his supporters might 
prove not less dangerous than his enemies. He refused 
to fulfil his compact with Noureddin and ordered his 
generals to quit the country. Shiracouh replied by the 
capture of Pelusium, and Shawer, more successful than 
Dargham in obtaining aid from Jerusalem, besieged 
Shiracouh in his newly conquered city with Siege and 

. . surrender of 

the help of the army of Almeric. The Latm Shiracouh in 
king after a fruitless blockade of some ^"^^"'"• 
months found himself called away to meet dangers nearer 
home ; and the besieged general, not knowing the cause, 
accepted an offer of capitulation binding him 
to leave Egypt after the surrender of his pri- Defeat of the 
soners. But the Latin armies were transferred Noured^n 
from Egypt only to undergo a desperate de- sultan of 
feat at the hands of Noureddin in the terri- 
tory of Antioch, and thus to leave Antioch itself at the 
mercy of the enemy. 

Noureddin may have hesitated to attack Antioch from 
the fear that such an enterprise might bring upon him the 
arms of the Greek emperor. He was more anxious to 
extinguish the Fatimite power in Egypt, — in Alliance of 
other words, to become lord of countries the^Egypdan 
hemming in the Latin kingdom to the south sultan. 
as well as to the north ; and it was precisely this danger 
which king Almeric knew that he had most reason to 
fear. To put the best colour on his design, Noureddin 



loo The Crusades. ch. vi. 

obtained from Mostadhi, the caliph of Bagdad, the 
sanction which converted his enterprise into a war as 
holy as that which the Norman conqueror waged against 
Harold of England. The story of the war attests the 
valour of both sides, under the alternations of disaster 
and success. The Latin king had already entered Cairo, 
when a large part of the force of Shiracouh was over- 
whelmed by a terrific sandstorm. But the retreat of 
Shiracouh across the Nile failed to reassure tlie Egyp- 
tians. Almeric received 200,000 gold pieces for the con- 
tinuance of his help, with the promise that 200,000 more 
should be paid to him on the complete destruction of their 
enemies ; and the treaty was ratified in the presence of 
the powerless sovereign whose consent was never asked 
for the alliances or treaties of the minister who was his 
master. The remaining events of the campaign were a 
Operations of battle in which a part of the army of Almeric 
^gSnst'^Shi- was defeated by Shiracouh and his nephew 
racouh. Saladin ; the surrender of Alexandria on the 

summons of Shiracouh ; and the blockade of that city by 
Almeric, who at length obtained from the 
A. D. II 7. 'YviX^. the pledge that after an exchange of 
prisoners he would lead his forces away from Egypt, on 
the condition that the road to Syria should be left open 
to him. 

The banners of Almeric and the Fatimite caliph waved 
together on the walls of Alexandria ; but on either side 
Real designs ^^^ pcace or trucc was a mere makeshift for 
of Almeric. the purposc of gaining time. Neither the 
Latin king nor the sultan of Aleppo had given up the 
thought of the conquest of Egypt ; and Almeric found a 
ready cause of quarrel in the plea that since his own 
return to Palestine the Egyptians had entered into com- 
munication with their enemy and his. The king of Je- 



1 1 68. The Loss of Jerusalem. loi 

rusalem had lately married the niece of the Greek 
emperor, and the latter promised to aid the expedition 
with his fleet. The help of the Knights Hospitallers 
was easily obtained, while (some said, on this account) 
that of the Knights Templars was refused. At length 
with a large and powerful army Almeric left ^ j,. 1168. 
Jerusalem, pretending that his destination 
was the Syrian town of Hems : but after a while his 
march was suddenly turned. In ten days he reached 
Pelusium ; and the storm and capture of that ^ 

^ Expedition of 

city were followed by a wanton carnage Almeric to 
which served to increase, if anything could 
increase, the reputation of the Christians for merciless 
cruelty. The prayers of the vizir Shawer for help were 
now directed as earnestly to the Turkish sultan as they 
had once been to the Latin king of Jerusalem ; but his 
envoys were also sent to Almeric offering him a million 
pieces of gold, of which a tenth part was produced on 
the spot. Almeric took the bribe ; and when his army 
looked for nothing less than the immediate sack of Cairo, 
they were told that they must remain idle while the rest 
of the money was being collected. The vizir took care 
that the gathering should not be ended before the 
soldiers of Noureddin had reached the frontier; and 
Almeric found too late that he was caught jjis ignomi- 
in the trap which his own greed had laid for "i°"^ retreat. 
him. He could himself do nothing but retreat, and his 
retreat was as disastrous as it was ignominious. The 
Greek fleet had shown itself off the mouths of the Nile, 
and had sailed away again. The Greek emperor could 
not be punished ; but a scapegoat for the failure of the 
enterprise was found in the grand-master of the Hos- 
pitallers, who was deprived of his dignity by his knights. 
The triumph of Shiracouh brought with it the fall of 



102 . The Crusades. ch. vi. 

the vizir Shawer, who was seized and put to death, while 
_,. -„ , the man whose aid he had invoked, was 

Rise of Sala- , * 

din to power chosen to fill his place. But Shiracouh him- 
gypc- ggj£- iiyg(j Qj^iy ^^Q months ; and then, by- 

way of choosing one whose love of pleasure and lack of 
influence seemed to promise a career of useful insignifi- 
cance, the Fatimite caliph made the young Saladin his 
minister. The caliph was mistaken. Saladin brought 
back his Koords, and so used the treasures which his 
office placed at his command, that the new yoke became 
stronger than the old one. 

To the Latins the exaltation of Saladin signified the 

formation of a really formidable power on their southern 

frontier. Their alarm prompted embassies to the court 

of the Eastern emperor and the princes of Western 

^ . Christendom. But the time was not yet 

A. D. I169. At- , ^ 

tempts to stir come for a third crusade ; and only from 
up a rusa e. ]y[3^j^ygj ^^^ ^^^ -j^^jp obtained. His fleet 

aided the Latins in a fruitless siege of Damietta ; and a 
terrible earthquake which laid Aleppo in ruins and shat- 
tered the walls of Antioch saved them from 

A. D. II71. 

attack by the army of Noureddin which was 
approaching from the north. Still, in spite of conspira- 
cies or revolutions of the old nobility, the power of Sala- 
din was growing, and at length he dealt with the mock 
sovereignty of the Fatimites as Pepin dealt with that of 
the Merovingians. The last Fatimite sultan, then pros- 
trate in his last illness, never knew that the public 

prayer had been offered in the name of the 
the^^^Fadmite caliph of Bagdad ; but Saladin had the glory 
Saiadi?^^ of ending a schism which had lasted two 

hundred years, and from Mostadhi, the 
vicar of the Prophet, he received the gift of a linen robe 
and two swords. 



1 1 78. The Loss of Jerusalem. 103 

But the healing of one schism led only to the opening 
of another. Saladin was the servant of the sultan of 
Aleppo, and he had been recognized and 
confirmed in office by Mostadhi strictly on twe^n^Saiadin 
the score of this lieutenancy. But the new of Aieppo"^^^'^ 
vizir of Egypt had no mind to obey any 
longer the summons of his old master ; and to his threat 
of chastisement Saladin in his council of emirs retorted 
by a threat of war. His vehemence was cooled when 
his own father declared before the assembly that, were 
he so commissioned by Noureddin, he would strike his 
son's head off from his shoulders. In private, he let 
Saladin know that his mistake lay not in thinking of re- 
sistance, but in speaking of it ; and a letter sent by his 
advice sufficed for the present to smooth matters over. 
But the time of quietness could not last 
long. The designs of Saladin became con- Death o^ kou- 
tinually more manifest, and Noureddin was ^r^,'"' ^"^'^" 
on his way to Egypt when he was struck 
down by illness and died at Damascus. 

In the sultan of Aleppo, as in the general who had 
risen to greatness through his favour, we have a man to 
whom the chronicles of the time and of later 
ages delighted to ascribe the magnanimity Noureddin °^ 
and simplicity of Omar. It must at the least 
be admitted that the ideal of Moslem courtesy and 
chivalry is more refined and generous than that of 
Western Christendom, and that the truth of the picture 
drawn of Noureddin receives some support from the en- 
thusiastic eulogies of William, archbishop of Tyre. ' I 
fear God,' he replied to his queen who complained that 
she had not enough even for her wants ; ' I am but the 
treasurer of the people. But I have three shops in 
Hems ; these you may take, and this is all that I have to 



I04 The Crusades. ch. vi. 

give.* He made it his business to provide everywhere 
mosques, hospitals, schools, and resting-places for trav- 
ellers ; and justice, it is said, was as impartially admin- 
istered in his time as in the days of the English Alfred. 
The widow of Noureddin held the fortress of Paneas ; 
and her husband's death encouraged Almeric to under- 
take the siege. A bribe to abandon it was at first re- 
fused. A fortnight later it was accepted: but Almeric 
returned to Jerusalem only to die. His life had lasted 
only five years longer than that of his pre- 
Baidwm^'iv., deccssor Baldwin ; but it had been long 
saiem°/"^^'^" enough to win for him a reputation for con- 
summate avarice and meanness. His son 
and successor, Baldwin IV., was a leper ; and his disease 
made such rapid strides as to make it necessary to dele- 
gate his authority to another. His first choice fell on 
Guy of Lusignan, the husband of his sister Sibylla ; but 
either the weakness of Guy or the quarrels of the barons 
brought everything into confusion, and Baldwin, foiled 
in his wish to annul his marriage, devised 

A. D. 1183. - . 

his crown to Baldwin, the infant son of Si- 
bylla by her first marriage, Raymond II., count of Tri- 
poli, being nominated regent and Joceline of Courtenay 
the guardian of the child. But within three years the 
leper king died, followed soon after by the 
BaidwhiV. infant Baldwin v.; and in the renewed strife 
s'r^^"^^™' consequent on these events Guy of Lu- 
signan managed to establish himself by 
right of his wife king of Jerusalem. He was still quite 
a young man, but he had earned for himself 
GuyoVlu- an evil name. The murderer of Patric, 
signan king of g^rl of Sahsbury, he had been banished by 

Jerusalem. •' ' ^ •' 

Henry II., from his dominions in France : 
and the opinion of those who knew him found expres- 



1 187. The Loss of Jerusalem. 105 

sion in the words of his brother Geoffrey, ' Had they 
known me, the men who made my brother king would 
have made me a god.' 

Guy was king : but Raymond of Tripoh refused him 
his allegiance. Guy besieged him in Tiberias, and Ray- 
mond made a treaty with Saladin. But Preparations 
Saladin was now minded to seize a higher ofSaiadmfor 

o the reconquest 

prey. He was master of Syria and Egypt : of Jerusalem. 
he was resolved that the Crescent should once more dis- 
place the Cross on the mosque of Omar. Pretexts for 
the war were almost superfluous ; but he had an abun- 
dance of them in the ravages committed by barons of 
the Latin kingdom on the lands and the property of 
Moslems. Fifty thousand horsemen and a vast army on 
foot gathered under his standard, when he declared his 
intention of attacking Jerusalem : but their first assault 
was on the castle of Tiberias. On hearing these ominous 
tidings Raymond of Tripoli at once laid aside all thought 
of private quarrels. Hastening to Jerusalem he said that 
the safety of his own city was a very secondary matter, 
and earnestly besought Guy to confine himself to a 
strictly defensive war, which would soon reduc^e the inva- 
der to the extremity of distress. The advice was wise 
and good; but the grand-master of the Templars fas- 
tened on the very nobleness of his self-sacrifice and the 
disinterestedness of his counsel as proof of some sinister 
design which they were intended to hide. 

Had it been Baldwin III. to whom he was speaking, 
the insinuation would have been thrust aside with scorn 
and disgust. To the mean mind of Guy it carried with 
it its own evidence ; and it was resolved to meet the 
Saracen on ground of his own choosing. The troops of 
Saladin were already distressed by heat and a. d. 1187. 
thirst when they encountered the Latin army ^fbrnS."'^ °^ 



io6 The Crusades. ch. vi. 

from Jerusalem. The issue of the first day's fight- 
ing was undecided ; but the heat of a Syrian summer 
night was for the Christians rendered more terrible by 
the stifling smoke of woods set on fire by the orders of 
Saladin. Parched with thirst, and well knowing that on 
the event of that day depended the preservation of the 
Holy Sepulchre, the crusaders at sunrise rushed with 
their fierce war-cries on the enemy. Before them the 
golden glory of morning lit up the radiant shores of the 
tranquil sea where the Galilsean fisherman had heard 
from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth the word of life. But 
nearer still was a memorial yet more holy, a pledge of 
divine favour yet more assuring. On a hillock hard by 
was raised the relic of the true cross, and this hillock was 
many times a rallying point during this bloody day. 
There was little of generalship perhaps on either side ; 
and where men are left to mere hard fighting, numbers 
must determine the issue. The hosts of Saladin far out- 
^ , numbered those of the Latin chiefs ; and 

Capture of i i . rr^i 

GuyofLusig- for these retreat ended m massacre. The 
^^^' king and the grand-master of the Templars 

Loss of the were taken prisoners; the holy relic which 

true cross 

had spurred them on to desperate exertion 
fell into the hands of the infidels. 

The victory of Saladin was rich in its fruits. Tiberias 
was taken. Berytos, Acre, Cassarea, Jaffa opened their 
^ . , , gates ; Tyre alone was saved by the heroism 

Fruits of the ° ' •' , i /. 

victory of of Conrad of Montferrat, brother of the first 

husband of queen Sibylla. Not caring to 
undertake a regular siege, Saladin marched to Ascalon, 
and offered its defenders an honourable peace, which after 
some hesitation was accepted. 

The rejection of Raymond's advice had left Jerusalem 
practically at the mercy of Saladin. It was crowded 



1 187. The Loss of Jerusalem. ^ i?9 

with people : but the garrison was scanty, 
and the armies which should have defended fall of jem- 
it were gone. Their presence would not, pro- ^^ ^™" 
bably, have availed to give a different issue to the siege ; 
but it must have added fearfully to its horrors. Saladin 
had made up his mind that the Latin kingdom must fall, 
and he would have fought on until either he or his 
enemies could fight no longer. Numbers, wealth, re- 
sources, military skill, instruments of war, all combined 
to give him advantages before which mere bravery must 
sooner or later go down ; and protracted resistance 
meant nothing more than the infliction of useless misery. 
Saladin may have been neither a saint nor a hero ; but it 
cannot be denied that his temper was less fierce and his 
language more generous than that of the Christians who 
under Godfrey had deluged the city with blood. He 
had no wish, he said, so to defile a place hallowed by its 
associations for Moslems as well as Christians, and if the 
city were surrendered, he pledged himself not merely to 
furnish the inhabitants with the money which they might 
need, but even to provide them with new homes in Syria. 
But superstition and obstinacy are to all intents and pur- 
poses words of the same meaning. The offer, honourable 
to him who made and carrying no ignominy to those who 
might accept it, was rejected, and Saladin made a vow 
that entering the city as an armed conqueror he would 
offer up within it a sacrifice as awful as that by which the 
crusaders had celebrated their loathsome triumph. Most 
happily for others, most nobly for himself, he failed to 
keep this vow to the letter. Fourteen days sufficed to 
bring the siege to an end. The Christians had done 
what they could to destroy the military engines of their 
enemies ; the golden ornaments of the churches had 
been melted down and turned into money ; but no solid 



lo^o The Crusades, CH. vi. 

advantage was gained by all their efforts. The con- 
viction of the Christian that death brought salvatio^i to 
the champions of the cross, the assurance of the Moslem 
that to those who fell fighting for the creed of Islam the 
gates of paradise were at once opened, only added to 
the desperation of the combatants and to the fearful- 
ness of the carnage. At length the besieged discovered 
that the walls near the gate of St, Stephen had been un- 
dermined, and at once they abandoned all hope of 
safety except from miraculous intervention. Clergy and 
laity crowded into the churches, their fears quickened by 
the knowledge that the Greeks within the city were treat- 
ing with the enemy. The remembrance of Saladin's 
offer now came back with more persuasive power ; but to 
the envoys whom they sent the stern answer was returned 
that he was under a vow to deal with the Christians as 
Godfrey and his fellows had dealt with the Saracens. 
Yet, conscious or unconscious of the inconsistency of his 
words with the oath which he professed to have sworn, 
he promised them his mercy if they would at once sur- 
render the city. The besieged resolved to trust the word 
of the conqueror, as they could not resist his power. The 
agreement was made that the nobles and fighting men 
should be taken to Tyre which still held out under Con- 
rad ; that the Latin inhabitants should be redeemed at the 
rate of ten crowns of gold for each man, five for each 
woman, one for each child ; and that, failing this ransom, 
they should remain slaves. On the sick and the helpless 
he waged no war; and although the Knights of the Hos- 
pital were among the most determined of his enemies, 
he would allow their brethren to remain for a year in 
their attendance on the sufferers who could not be moved 
away. 

In the exasperation of a religious warfare now ex- 



1 187. The Loss of Jerusalem. 109 

tended over nearly a century these terms were very mer- 
ciful. It may be said that this mercy was „ , , 

,.- ^ ' . , ,.,, Terms of the 

the right of a people who submitted to the capitulation, 
invader, and that in the days of Godfrey 
and Peter the Hermit the defenders had resisted to the 
last. It is enough to answer that the capitulation of the 
Latins was a superfluous ceremony and that Saladin knew 
it to be so, while, if the same submission had been 
offered to the first crusaders, it would have been sternly 
and fiercely refused. 

Four days were allowed to the people to prepare for 
their departure. On the fifth they passed through the 
camp of the enemy, the women carrying 
or leading their children, the men bearing the Latins 
such of their household goods as they were Holy City. 
able to move. On the approach of the 
queen and her ladies in the garb and with the gestures 
of suppliants Saladin himself came forward, and with 
genuine courtesy addressed to them words of encourage- 
ment and consolation. Cheered by his generous lan- 
guage, they told him that for their lands, their houses, 
and their goods they cared nothing. Their prayer was 
that he would restore to them their fathers, their hus- 
bands, and their brothers. Saladin granted their request, 
added his alms for those who had been left orphans or 
destitute by the war, and remitted a portion of the ran- 
som appointed for the poor. In this way the number 
of those who remained unredeemed was reduced to 
eleven or twelve thousand ; and Saracenic slavery, al- 
though degrading, was seldom as cruel as the slavery 
which has but as yesterday been extinguished by the 
most fearful of recent wars. 

The entry of Saladin into Jerusalem was accompanied 
by the usual signs of triumph. Amidst the waving of 



no The Crusades. ch. vi. 

^ ^ ^ banners and the clash of martial music he 

Entry of Sa- 

ladin into advanced to the mosque of Omar on the 

summit of which the Christian cross still 
flashed in the clear air. A wail of agony burst from the 
Christians who were present as this emblem was hurled 
down to the earth and dragged through the mire. For 
two days it underwent this indignity, while the mosque 
was purified from its defilements by streams of rose- 
water, and dedicated afresh to the worship of the One 
God adored by Islam. The crosses, the relics, the 
sacred vessels of the Christian sanctuaries, which had 
been carefully stowed away in four chests, had fallen 
into the hands of the conquerors, and it was the wish of 
Saladin to send them to the caliph of the Prophet as the 
proudest trophies of his victory. Even this wish he 
generously consented to forego. The chests were left 
in the keeping of the patriarch, and the price put upon 
them, 52,000 golden byzants, was paid by Richard of 
England. 

Conrad still held out in Tyre, nor was he induced to 
surrender even when Saladin himself as- 
Tyr?under Sailed its walls. The siege was raised : and 
Conrad. ^^ ^^^^ personage to appear before its 

gates was Guy of Lusignan, who, having regained his 
freedom, insisted on being admitted as lord of the city. 
The grand-master of the Templars seconded his demand. 
The reply was short and decisive. The people would 
own no other master than the gallant knight 
quests of Sa- who had SO nobly defended them. But the 
ladin. escape of Tyre had no effect on the general 

issue of the war. Town after town submitted to Saladin ; 
and the long series of his triumphs closed when he en- 
tered the gates of Antioch. 



1 1 87- The Loss of Jerusalem. iii 

Eighty-eight years had passed away since the cru- 
saders of Godfrey and Tancred had stood triumphant on 
the walls of the Holy City ; and during all ^ 

T • 1 • 1 11 11 Causes of 

those years the Latin kingdom had seldom weakness in 
rested from wars and forays, from feuds and of jerula°"^ 
dissensions of every kind. From the first it ^^"^" 
displayed no characteristics which could give it any 
stability ; from the first it exhibited signs which foreboded 
its certain downfall, (i) It sanctified treachery, for it 
rested on the principle that no faith was to ,^^ g^^j <^^^^ 
be kept with the unbeliever; and the sowing in dealing 
of wind by the constant breach of solemn Moslem. 
compact made them reap the whirlwind. A right of 
pasturage round Paneas had been granted to the Ma- 
homedans by Baldwin III. When the ground was 
covered with their sheep, the Christian troops burst in, 
murdered the shepherds, and drove away their flocks, — 
not with the sanction, we may hope, of the most high- 
minded of the Latin kings of Jerusalem. (2) It recog- 
nized no title to property except in those who 

. , - - r , . ^, . -^ , , (2) Disregard 

professed the faith of Christ, and the power of rights of 

to commit injustice with practical impunity P'^^P^^y- 

tended still further to demoralize the people. (3) It gave 
full play to the passions of men in random 

1 r 1 -1 • T 1 1 ■ (3) Lax mill- 

wars and petty forays, while it did nothing tary disd- 

to keep up or to promote either military ^'"^" 
science or the discipline without which that science be- 
comes useless. (4) It was marked by an almost total 
lack of statesmanship. In a country so cir- 
cumstanced a wise ruler would strain every statesman- 
nerve to conciliate the conquered people, to ^ ^^' . 
strengthen himself by alliances which should be firmly 
maintained and by treaties which should be scrupulously 
kept, to weaken such states as he might fail to win over 



112 The Crusades. ch. vi. 

to his friendship by anticipating combinations which 
might bring with them fatal dangers for his power. That 
the history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem presents 
a mournful and even ludicrous contrast to this picture, it 
must surely be unnecessary to say. In the case of 
Egypt alone did the Latin kings show some sense of the 
course which prudence called upon them to take ; and 
even here this course was followed with miserable inde- 
cision, and at last disgracefully abandoned through mere 

(5) General ^^^t of gold. (s) It had to deal with an im- 
immorahty. morality not of its own creating, but which 
in mere regard to its own safety it should have striven to 
keep well in check. No such efforts were made, and the 
words of William of Tyre (even if taken with a qualifi- 
cation), when he speaks of the Latin women, point to a 

_ , state of things which must involve grave and 

(6) Desultory . , •■, //-\ t ^ • r r 

character of immmcnt peril. (6) It was the misfortune of 
e crusa es. ^_^^ kingdom that it was called into being 
by troops of adventurers banded together (it cannot be 
said, confederated) for a religious rather than a political 
purpose ; in other words, for personal rather than for 
public ends. It started therefore without any principle 
of cohesion. The warriors who engaged in the enter- 
prise might abandon it when they thought that they had 
fulfilled the conditions of their vow, and although the 
continuance of their efforts was indispensably needed 
for the military and political success of the undertaking. 

(7) The private and personal character of these enter- 
prises led to the perpetuation and multiplication of pri- 
(•7) Quarrels vate and personal interests, and thus to the 
and feuds of endless divisions and feuds between the 

the Latin 

chiefs. barons of the kingdom, which were a con- 

stant scandal and menace and which led frequently to 
deliberate treachery. (8) It encouraged, or permitted, 



1 187. The Loss of Jerusalem. 113 

or was compelled to tolerate the growth of ^gN Antaeon- 
societies which arrogated to themselves an isticjurisdic- 
independent jurisdiction, and thus rendered civil power, 
impossible a central authority of sufficient and the^miii'- 
coercive power. The origin of the military ^^""^ orders. 
orders may have been in the highest degree edifying. 
The Knights Templars might begin as the humble guar- 
dians of the Holy Places : the Knights Hospitallers 
may have been the poor brothers of St. John bound to 
the service of the sick and helpless among the pilgrims 
of the cross. But in a land where they might at any 
time encounter a merciless or at the least a detested ene- 
my, they were justified in bearing arms ; the necessity 
of bearing arms involved the need of discipline ; and 
the discipline of an enthusiastic fraternity cut off" from 
the world and centred upon itself cannot fail to become 
formidable. The natural strength of these orders was 
increased by immunities and privileges granted partly by 
the Latin kings of Jerusalem, but in greater part by the 
popes. The Hospitallers, as bestowing their goods to 
feed the poor and to entertain pilgrims, were freed from 
the obligation of paying tithe, or of giving heed 'to inter- 
dicts even if these were laid upon the whole country* 
while it was expressly asserted that no patriarch or pre- 
late should dare to pass any sentence of excommunica- 
tion against them. In other words, a society was called 
into existence directly antagonistic to the clergy, and an 
irreconcilable conflict of claims was the inevitable con- 
sequence. Nor can we be surprised to find the clergy 
complaining that the knights, not content with the im- 
munities secured to themselves, gave shelter to persons 
who, not belonging to their order but lying under sen- 
tence of excommunication, sought to place themselves 
under their protection. But if the Knights of the Hos- 



114 The Crusades. ch. vii, 

pital had thus their feuds with the clergy, they had feuds 
still more bitter with the rival order of the Templars. 
"With different interests and different aims, the one 
sought to promote enterprises against which the other 
protested, or stickled about points of precedence when 
common decency called for harmonious action, or with- 
held its aid when that aid was indispensable for the very 
safety of the state. Thus we have the triple discord of 
the king and his barons struggling against the claims 
of the clergy, and the military orders in conflict with the 
barons and the clergy alike. Of a state so circumstanced 
the words are emphatically true that a house divided 
against itself shall not stand. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE THIRD CRUSADE. 



A HALO of false glory surrounds the third crusade from 
the associations which connect it with the lion-hearted 
^. . . king of England. The exploits of Richard 

Fictitious or . . 

romantic I. have Stirred to enthusiasm the dullest of 

Richard I. of chrouiclcrs, have furnished themes for jubi- 
Engiand. X^^xii eulogics, and have shed over his life 

that glamour which cheats even sober-minded men as 
they read the story of his prototype A&hilleus in the 
tale of Troy. They have done even more, for, if we 
may believe the narrative, they excited the same vehe- 
ment admiration in his most redoubtable enemy ; and 
the romance of youth or even of maturer age fastens on 
the picture which exhibits the brother of Saladin in the 
thick of mortal fight as sending to him two Arabian 
chargers by way of lauding the hero for dealing wounds 
and death on a multitude of his people. 



1 190. The Third Crusade. 115 

When we turn from the picture to the reahty, we 
shall see in this third crusade an enterprise in which the 
fiery zeal which does something towards re- Real character 
deeming the savage brutalities of Godfrey °he^hird'cru'^^ 
and the first crusaders is displaced by base sade. 
and sordid greed, by intrigues utterly of the earth earthy, 
by wanton crimes from which we might well suppose 
that the sun would hide away its face ; and in the lead- 
ers of this enterprise we shall see men in whom, morally, 
there is scarcely a single quality to relieve the monoto- 
nous blackness of their infamy, in whom, strategically, a 
very little generalship comes to the aid of a blind brute 
force, and in some of whom, personally, an animal cou- 
rage or ferocity, which fears no danger and knows no 
fatigue, surmounts a thousand difficulties and charms the 
vast multitudes who find their highest delight in the 
worship or idolatry of mere power. As a military leader 
Richard I. of England is beneath contempt when com- 
pared with the first Napoleon ; but he may fairly compete 
with him as a criminal. Alaric the Goth and Attila the 
Hun never professed to be sovereigns of a civilized 
people ; but in no sense have they a better title to be re- 
garded as scourges of mankind. 

Undertakings which depend on the temper and re- 
sources of individual men are not likely to be carried out 
with unswerving persistence ; and this ebb 

A a c J • -11 Decay of the 

and flow of purpose and energy is especially crusading 
manifest in the history of the crusades, ^p'"*^- 
With any marked success comes a feeling of self-com- 
placency in the thought that a vow has been strictly ful- 
filled or a duty thoroughly discharged ; and the result is 
either slackness or total indifference to matters which 
thus far seemed in their importance to leave everything 
else in the shade. Assuredly there was little indeed in 



ii6 . The Crusades. ch.vii. 

the lives of the later Latin kings of Jerusalem to keep 
alive the enthusiasm which had been roused by the 
preaching of the hermit Peter ; and for the time a change 
seems to pass over the spirit of the dream which for 
nearly a hundred years had been beguiling Western 
Christendom. 

The impulse (it can scarcely be dignified with the 
name of policy) which led Almeric (p. loo) to fix his 
thoughts on the conquest of Egypt, is the nearest approach 
to the temper of the true statesman and general exhibited 
in the history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. It 
aimed not only at preventing a combination of hostile 
powers to the north and south fraught with fatal dangers 
for any dominion which might lie between them, but it 
seemed to promise the possession of a country of immense 
importance to the merchant and the trader. This advan- 
tage was clearly seen and eagerly aimed at 
by the third Lateran council, which insisted 
that the conquest of Damietta should be the first object 
of every crusade, the maintenance of the kingdom of 
^, . , Jerusalem at best only the second. In 

Change in the "^ .... 

character of short, these expeditions had in strictness of 

the crusades. , 1,1 1 1 

speech ceased to be crusades, unless an ex- 
ception is to be made in the case of the sainted Louis 
IX. of France. With him, as with Godfrey and the first 
crusaders, the religious motive absorbed every other. 
In the rest the professed object of the scheme is made an 
excuse for roving forays or political conquests, or is 
feebly carried out as an irksome or even repulsive task, 
while the harmony indispensable for success is sacrificed 
for quarrels and deadly feuds which would do credit to 
the society of savages. 

But until the Cross had been thrust aside for the Cres- 
cent on the mosque of Omar, the task of stirring up the 



1 1 79-' 85- The Thh^d Crusade. 117 

Western princes for another crusade was 
neither easy nor successful. The crusading Engf^d and 
spirit was never strong in Henry II. of T^ru\km^^°^ 
England, and even after the quarrel with , 

Becket had come to an end with his death, he had a 
convenient excuse for staying at home in the dangers 
which menaced his dominions from the 
north. But with the captivity of his enemy 
William this pretext vanished. The Scottish king swore 
to hold his kingdom as a fief of the English crown; 
and Henry, unable any longer to resist the argu- 
ments or entreaties of the French king, Louis VII., prom- 
ised to combine his forces as duke of Nor- 

A. D. II77. 

mandy with those of his liege lord for the 

succour of the Christians in the Holy Land. The death 

of Louis, which cut short this design, brought 

_. . ^ * A. D. I180. 

no bitter disappomtment to Henry ; but 
when, some five years later, Heraclius (Herakleios), 
patriarch of Jerusalem, kneeling before him 
with the count of Tripoli and the grand- 
master of the Hospitallers, placed in his hands the 
sceptre of his kinsman Fulk of Anjou and of the kings 
who had succeeded him, with the keys of the Holy City 
and the Holy Sepulchre, the English monarch was care- 
ful to address them in words which conveyed encourage- 
ment while they committed him to nothing. He would 
ask the advice of his council ; and his question was so 
put as to show clearly what he would wish the answer to 
be. He desired to know whether his duty called him to 
govern and guard his subjects at home or to break 
lances with Saracens to prop up the tottering sway of 
a distant sovereign. There was no doubt in the mind 
of his barons and prelates that the nearer work had a 
paramount call on him; and the promise of Henry to 



ii8 The C7nisades. ch. vii. 

contribute 50,000 marks for the needs of the Latin king- 
dom in Palestine was received by the patriarch with a 
dissatisfaction which manifestly excited the king's anger. 
Not a whit abashed, Heraclius bade him deal with him- 
self as- he had dealt with the martyr Thomas of Canter- 
bury, and expressed himself as not less ready to die by 
his hands than by those of the less cruel Saracens. 
This ridiculous taunt was allowed to pass without rebuke, 
and Heraclius departed unhurt after consecrating the 
church of the Knights Templars in the city of London. 
But the fall of Jerusalem cast a new colour over ques- 
tions of policy and duty. A few days after that event, 
and in all likelihood before he could have 

A D I187 

Death of Ur- heard of it, pope Urban III. died at Verona, 
oppressed with grief not for a disaster of 
which he was ignorant, but for the death struggle which 
seemed imminent between the papal and the imperial 
power. His successor Gregory VIIL, whose short ponti- 
ficate was ended in less than two months, 
Gregory^ VIII. bewailed the event as a catastrophe affect- 
ing the whole of Christendom ; but he was 
probably not unconscious that for the papacy it might 
create a diversion which might rescue it from dire peril, 
if not destruction. The few days of life which remained 
to him were spent in writing letters to reawaken the 
spirit which had been roused successively by the hermit 
Peter and the sainted Bernard. The divine wrath was 
to be appeased by a fast of five years, and the con- 
sciousness of shameless corruption and venality inspired 
the cardinals to promise that they would take no more 
bribes for the furtherance or perversion of justice, and 
that they would never mount again on horseback until 
the land once trodden by the Saviour should have ceased 
to be polluted by the feet of the unbeliever. 



II 'J 4-- 88. The ■ Third Crusade. 119 

Pope Gregory died on a journey undertaken for the 
purpose of making peace between the repubhcs of 
Genoa and Pisa, whose fleets were of the 
first importance for the carrying out of the Assumption of 
scheme which he had at heart. A few £en*;y fi ^ and 

weeks later the broad plain between Gisors Philip Augus- 
tus ot France, 
and Trie witnessed the meetmg of Henry 

of England and Philip Augustus, the young French king, 
to*hear the cause of the Christians in Palestine pleaded 
by William, archbishop of Tyre, the historian of the first 
and second crusades. The two sovereigns assumed the 
cross, and their example was followed by the count of 
Champagne, the count of Flanders, and a crowd of 
barons and knights. It was agreed that the English 
cross should be white, and the Flemish green, the French 
retaining the red. Henry hastened to England, and ob- 
tained from a council held at Geddington in Northamp- 
tonshire the imposition of a tax called the Saladin tithe. 
Every one who refused to join the crusade 
was to pay a tenth of all his goods movable tendi,'" *^^ ^^ 
or immovable. The sum thus raised was 70,- 
000/. ; but it is astonishing to learn that a sum almost as 
large, 60,000/., was extorted from the scanty company of 
Jews settled in England. Whether the burden pressed 
heavily upon them, we cannot tell. Worse things were in 
store for them before many months should pass away. 

It is possible that Henry may now have really intended 
to fulfil a promise with which thus far he had only dal- 
lied. He sent messengers to the Hungarian „ 

. ° ° Feuds in the 

kmg Bela, and Isaac Angelus, the Eastern family of 
emperor, to request a safe transit and free ^^^^ 
market for his followers. The demand was granted ; 
but Henry now had other concerns to occupy him. The 
wretched quarrels which were the inevitable consequence 



I20 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

of petty principalities and the complicated tenures of 
feudalism had assumed their most hateful form among 
the princes of the house of Anjou. Of the legitimate 
sons of Henry II., Henry, Richard, and John, it is hard 
to say which led the most disgraceful life and earned the 
most shameful reputation. The tyranny of Richard in 
Aquitaine was monstrous even in an age notorious for 
its cruelty and its treachery ; but it was probably no dis- 
interested sympathy for his victims which brougjit 
against him the forces of his elder brother Henry, and 
of his half-brother Geoffrey, the son of that Rosamond 
Clifford into whose history the popular talk of that 
or of a later day introduced a tale common to the folk- 
lore of many lands. The strife was for the time ap- 
peased by their father, against whom these dutiful chil- 
dren now turned their arms. The day fixed 

A. D. 1183. . . •' 

for the battle was drawing nigh when the 
young prince or king Henry (he had been crowned A. D. 
1 1 69 by the bishops excommunicated by Thomas of 
Canterbury shortly before his martyrdom) was cut off 
by a sudden attack of fever ; and Richard, as the eldest 
surviving son, looked on himself as heir to the crown 
of England, But it soon became plain that the affections 
of his father were fixed on his younger son John, one of 
the most despicable of cowards and most contemptible 
of traitors. The discovery led Richard to renew his in- 
timacy with the French king, Philip Augustus, to whose 
sister Adelais or Alix he had long since been betrothed. 
That princess had passed into the custody of the English 
king, and had, it was said, borne him a child ; but of 
this Richard for the present took no count, as backed 
by Philip Augustus, he insisted on her sur- 
render and on receiving the fealty of the 
barons as his father's heir-apparent. On this second 



1 1 89. The Thh\i Crusade. 121 

point the king's answer was ambiguous ; and Richard, 
exclaiming indignantly that he now believed what be- 
fore he had thought impossible, knelt down at the feet 
of Philip, and, demanding from him protection in his 
just rights, did homage to him for all his father's do- 
minions in France. In the war which followed Henry- 
was driven from the castles of Mans, Amboise, and 
Tours. His body was wasted with disease, and he was 
induced to meet his son and the French 

A. D. I189. 

king on a plain near Tours. A thunder- 
storm, in which the lightning twice fell near them, un- 
nerved him still more. He agreed to pay 20,000 marks 
to Philip, to surrender Adelais, and to allow his vassals 
to swear fealty to Richard, and asked only to see the 
list of the names of barons who had joined the con- 
federacy of the French king. At the head 

^ ^ A. D. I186. 

was the name of his own son John. He July. 
read no further. A raging fever came on, Henry II. 
during which he heaped curses on his un- 
natural children ; and in a week he died. 

Richard was now king of England ; but he was not 
the man to fix his thoughts on the wilder schemes which 
had filled the mind of his father. The power Preparations 
and wealth of his kingdom were things to be for A?cm^ ^" 
used for spreading his own renown, and this ^^'^^• 
renown could be won and extended nowhere so well as 
in the Holy Land, and in no other way so gloriously as in 
cleaving the bodies of unbehevers with his deadly broad- 
sword. It was the ambition of a ruffian, gilded over 
with a thin varnish borrowed from the chivalry of Tan- 
cred (p. 45) ; and he proceeded to gratify it at the ex- 
pense of the real interests whether of the kingdom or of 
himself. The sum which he needed for his enterprise far 
exceeded the 100,000 marks which his father's greed or 



122 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

-. , . economy had amassed in the treasury at 

raising mo- Sahsbury. Richard sold the earldom of 
"^^* Northumberland for i,ooo/. to the bishop of 

Durham for the term of his life : for 3,000/. he received 
into favour his brother Geoffrey, now archbishop of York : 
for 10,000/. he resigned to William the Scottish king all the 
rights over Scotland which the latter had conceded to 
Henry, together with the castles of Roxburgh and Ber- 
wick ; and then departed for Normandy on the same 
errand of plunder and exaction. 

Both the first and the second crusade had been marked 
at their outset by persecutions and massacres of the 
Persecution Jews. The third was to furnish no excep- 
cre oT Jew's tion. The Jews of England felt probably that 
in England. ^ storm was gathering, and they hastened to 
conciliate the king with costly presents. Their eagerness 
unhappily outran their discretion. Richard, knowing the 
feeling of the people, had ordered that no Jews should 
appear before him on the coronation day. Disregarding 
this command, some of them, mingling with the crowd, 
entered the palace, were thrust out by the mob, and mur- 
dered. The fire, thus kindled, spread furiously. Every 
Jew in the streets was cut down : every house belonging 
to a Jew was plundered and burnt. Some attempt was 
made to check the slaughter. Three men were hanged ; 
but they were charged, not with murdering Jews, but with 
robbing Christians under pretence that they were Jews, 
or with setting houses on fire to the danger or hurt of the 
property of Christians. The iniquity was not confined to 
London. The same things were done in all the great 
cities. At York, as at Lincoln, the wealthy Jews hurried 
^ ^ , with their goods into the castle. At Lincoln 

Fearful . ° _ , ., 

tragedy in they found Safety : at York they unhappily 

interpreted the departure of the governor 



1 189. The Third Crusade. 123 

from the castle as a sign that he was plotting against them 
with the Christians of the town, and closed the gates 
against him on his return. In his anger he induced the 
sheriff of the county to order his armed bands to the as- 
sault : and these were joined by the populace whose fury 
showed at once that they meant much more than the mere 
recovery of the castle. The besieged could hear the 
fierce cry of a canon regular, of the Premonstratensian 
order, who hounded on the mob to ' destroy the enemies 
of Christ.' They knew that their doom was sealed ; but 
if they must die, they might still choose the mode of their 
death. In a council summoned to debate the matter, the 
rabbi urged that they should avoid frightful insults and 
barbarous torments for their wives and children as well 
as for themselves by voluntarily rendering up their souls 
to the Creator, and falling by their own hands. The 
deed, he urged, was both reasonable and sanctioned by 
their law, as well as made famous by the men who in the 
deadly struggle between Jerusalem and Rome had slain 
themselves at Massada, To some his counsel seemed 
wise, to others a hard saying. The rabbi cut the discus- 
sion short by bidding all to depart in peace who could not 
approve his counsel. A few only left the chamber. In 
i few hours the work of death was done, and the castle 
was left in flames. The few, who could not summon 
courage to follow the example of their brethren, offered 
from the walls to open the gates and submit to baptism, 
if their lives should be spared. The terms were granted 
and the surrender was made ; and by way of keeping 
faith the Christians rushing in slaughtered every living 
thing within the walls. These were venial offences ; but the 
men of York added to them an act which was a real 
crime, and one of the deepest dye, in the eyes of king 
Richard. They hastened to the cathedral, and seizing on 



124 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

all the bonds and obligations which had been laid up in 
the archives burnt them in the nave. These bonds on the 
death of those who held them would all have escheated 
to the king ; and the bishop of Ely, the chancellor, was 
commissioned to search out and punish the offenders. 
But the ringleaders had made their escape across the 
Scottish border; and justice even in the matter of rob- 
bery was baffled. 

Richard, having filled his coffers so far as he could, 
met Philip Augustus at Vezelai where, forty-four years 
A. D. 1190. before, the pleadings of St. Bernard had 

RiSardand seemed to stir the heart of Christendom to 
Philip atVeze- efforts which must be successful. The voice 

lai. ^ . 

which now had most power was not that of 
fluSce of th'e"' ^^ pricst, the hermit, or the saint. It was 
troubadours. that of the troubadour ; an d if for the present 
his harp might be attuned to lofty measures, and his 
words might convey lessons almost as austere as those 
of pope Urban II., there was at least the danger that a 
very moderate measure of success might lead the min- 
strel to arouse emotions of a less devout sort and tempt 
his hearers to less exalted delights than those of prayer 
and meditation. The forces of the two kings amounted, 
it is said, to 100,000 men. The discipline which kept them 
together may be pictured from the rules which enacted 
that murderers should be tied to the bodies of their victims 
and hurled into the sea, that they who drew their swords 
in anger should lose their hands, and that thieves should 
be tarred and feathered and in that plight put on shore. 
While Philip and Richard were on their way to Sicily, 
Frederick I., emperor of the West, commonly known as 
MarchofFred- Barbarossa or Red Beard, was on his way 
rossa to Con-^" ^^ Constantinople. He had fought a long 
stantinopk. battle with the pope or the man who called 



ii99» The Third Crusade. 125 

himself pope. He had himself set up an anti-pope, as 
the imperialist popes were called ; and with the sanction 
of this anti-pope, who styled himself Pascal III., he had 
attacked Rome, beaten down the gates of St. Peter's 
with hatchets and axes, and seen his troops advance 
filling the church with blood as they fought their way to 
the high altar. In the midst of this carnage The popes and 
Pascal III. had placed the crown on the the empire. 
head of the empress Beatrice, and had blessed again the 
diadem of Frederick. He had had to contend with a 
mightier enemy than the pope in the fearful pestilence 
which broke out within his camp ; and his flight from 
Rome had ensured the victory of pope Alexander III., 
the somewhat hesitating friend of Thomas of Canterbury. 
But although the warfare of previous years was suc- 
ceeded by an apparent peace, Frederick lost no oppor- 
tunity of strengthening himself against the papacy ; and 
in the days of Urban III. he had gained much by secur- 
ing for his son Henry the hand of Constantia, heiress of 
the kingdom of Sicily. The old strife might have been 
renewed ; but the heart of Barbarossa was stirred by the 
tidings from the Holy Land or the letters of Gregory 
VIII., and his armies advanced under his standard 
through Hungary towards the capital of the Eastern 
empire. That capital Barbarossa, like his predecessor 
Conrad (p. 93), refused to enter. The Byzantine Csesar 
had with scant courtesy allowed him the privilege of 
buying food for his men ; he had studiously withheld 
from him the titles which implied a divided empire. 

The steadier discipline, the more decent order which 
marked the army of Barbarossa seemed to promise a 
better result to his enterprise. They had -p, , r 
defeated the Turks in a general battle, and Frederick I. 
had taken the Seljukian capital of Cogni 



126 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

(Iconium), (p. 82) ; but a great disaster, nothing less than 

the loss of their leader himself, awaited them. Frederick 

was drowned in a Pisidian river, as some said 

A. D. II>90. . . 

while he was crossmg it ; as others had it, 
from the effects of bathing. The misery and suffering 
which had fallen to the lot of the earlier crusaders now 

weighed heavily upon them : and the 

Re-occupa- ° . \.- . , ,,.-., 

tion of wretched story is sufficiently told, if it be 

true that not a tenth of the number which 
crossed the Bosporos lived to enter Antioch. The few 
who made their way thus far found a city almost deserted 
by the Turkish soldiers, and Antioch once more had a 
Christian government. 

But while the sovereigns of the West were thus pre- 
paring for another great effort on their behalf, the Latins 
of Palestine were struggling hard to win 

A. D. I189. . && fc. 

Siege of back their lost supremacy, and were aided 

by crowds of armed pilgrims, whose im- 
mense numbers have to be taken into account if we wish 
to realize the extent of the drain to which the population 
of Europe was thus subjected. Too impatient to wait, 
these wanderers hurried, with whatever motives, to the 
scenes where, as they supposed, honour could not fail to 
be won, even if wealth and happiness should not be their 
portion. The conflict now turned on the possession of 
Acre, the key of the whole region lying to the west of 
the Jordan. It had opened its gates to Saladin soon 
after the battle of Tiberias ; and before Richard of Eng- 
land and Philip Augustus set foot on the Holy Land it 
had been besieged for nearly two years by Guy of Lu- 
signan, titular king of Jerusalem, with an army which 
the influx of pilgrims from Europe had raised, it is said, 
to 100,000 men. But the besiegers had little generalship, 
and the mischief done to their effectiveness by vice and 



1 190. The Third Crusade. 127 

debauchery was completed by a fearful pestilence which 
swept them away by thousands. 

In the midst of this misery a few German merchants, 
from the coast of the Baltic, sought to mitigate suffering 
by running up the sails of their ships as -d- ♦ f u 
tents for the sick and dying. The happy Teutonic 
results which followed their work led to an 
organization similar to that of the orders of the Temple 
and the Hospital. Like those orders, the Teutonic 
knights rose to power and distinction, and in the history 
of the crusade of Frederick II., we shall find their 
grand-master, Herman of Salza, in high favour both 
with the emperor and with the pope, his implacable 
antagonist. With the failure of the crusades in the 
East the order was transferred to the more forbid- 
ding regions which had sent forth its founders, and 
their crusade was turned against the heathen of the 
Lithuanian, Prussian, Esthonian, and other tribes. They 
preached the gospel with the sword, and their efforts 
were followed at least by military success. Their grasp 
on the lands which they overran was never relaxed, 
and the last grand-master became the sovereign of a 
state which has grown into the modern kingdom of 
Prussia. 

The sickness and vice which wasted the forces of the 
crusaders before Acre were powerfully aided by feuds 
among the chiefs. Sibylla, the sister of Bald- 

. A. D. II90. 

win IV., and wife of Guy of Lusignan, was Death of 
carried off by the plague. Her two children queen^of 
died with her, and her husband found him- Jerusalem, 
self stripped of the privilege which had made him at 
least the shadow of a king. Isabel, the sister of his 
wife, still lived, and having got rid of her first husband 
Humphry, lord of Thoron, was now married to Conrad, 



128 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

Conrad marquis of Tyre. As thus wedded to the 

titular heiress of Almeric, Conrad claimed the 

king 01 _ 

Jerusalem. Sovereignty of Jerusalem, and the decision 
of the point was reserved for the kings of England and 
France. 

These kings were now on their way to the East. 
Richard had journeyed by land to Genoa, while his fleet, 

having crossed the bay of Biscay, anchored 
the English at Lisbon, where his forces found a crusade 
bon and ready to their hands. The town of Santarem, 

Messina. f^j.^^ miles above Lisbon, was blockaded by 

the Saracen emir. With the aid of the English the Por- 
tuguese raised the siege and then found themselves com- 
pelled to fight with their deliverers in the streets of Lisbon. 
The crusaders thought that they carried with them a 
license for universal plunder and insult ; and it was not 
without difficulty and much bloodshed that they were 
persuaded by their leaders to reserve the application of 
their theory for more distant lands. The summer was 

coming to an end when Richard, having 

A. D. 1190. ... . 

Sept. 23. joined his fleet on the Italian coast, entered 

Messina almost in the guise of a conqueror, to the terror 
of the Sicilians and the disgust of the French king 
Phihp. 

Then, as through almost the whole of its chequered 
history, Sicily was a prize for which contending kings and 
^ , , adventurers intrigued, or fought. It was now 

Conduct of ° , 

Richard I. held by Tancred, an illegitimate son of the 
ici y. Apulian duke Roger. His sister Constantia, 

the legitimate daughter of Roger, was the wife of Henry, 
son of Frederick Barbarossa, who wished to make the 
island a portion of his own imperial realm (p. 125). He 
was foiled by Tancred, who took the further precaution 
of imprisoning Joanna, the widow of his predecessor 



iipo- The Third Crusade. 129 

William called the Good. Joanna was the sister of the 
English Richard, who was not slow in demanding her 
freedom, her dower, and the legacies which William the 
Good had left to his father Henry II. His demands were 
accompanied by robbery and violence, and his followers 
hastened to imitate his example. They came to open 
strife with the people in the streets of Messina ; and the 
battle was followed by the plundering of the town. But 
the raising of the English standard on the walls was in- 
terpreted as an ,insult by Philip Augustus, and Richard 
was constrained to appease his wrath by placing the city 
in the charge of the Knights Templars and Hospitallers. 

The dispute with Tancred was made up Quarrel be- 
by the betrothal of his infant daughter to anrphm?^''* 
Arthur, duke of Brittany, that luckless vie- Augustus. 
tim of the cruelty of John whom Shakespeare has made 
famous. But the quarrels of these champions of the 
cross are tangled like links in a twisted chain. By way 
of showing his friendly feeling, Tancred placed in Rich- 
ard's hand a letter bearing the signature of the French 
king and inviting Tancred to a private alliance against 
Richard. The latter charged Philip Augustus with the 
treachery, and was charged in turn with producing forged 
letters by way of devising an escape from his engage- 
ment with his sister Adelais. Richard had offered to 
marry Berengaria, daughter of Sancho, king of Navarre, 
and with studied coarseness he told Philip that he could 
have nothing to do with the mother of his father's child. 
So was changed into mortal hatred that alliance which 
in its early days had led them to eat at the same table 
and rest in the same bed. 

Thus passed away the winter in disgraceful quarrels 
and in lavish outlays of money scarcely less disgraceful. 
In the spring the French king sailed for Acre. 

K 



130 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

A. D. 1191. Richard went to Rhodes, and while he re- 
War*between mained there sick, he heard that some of his 
Richard and people had been wrecked on the coast of Cy- 

the Comne- r- x- ^ ^ ./ 

nian emperor prus, robbed of their goods, and imprisoned 
by Isaac the Comnenian prince who called 
himself emperor of the island. His demand for compen- 
sation was unheeded. The English fleet appeared before 
Limasol, the southernmost town of the island : and the 
English troops were soon masters of the city. Isaac 
entered into a treaty which bound him to serve with 500 
knights in the crusade, and in the event of good behaviour 
Richard promised him the restoration of his kingdom. 
But fear got the better of his prudence. He made his 
escape, and again met the English king in battle. The 
fight was followed by his surrender, and Richard ordered 
him to be kept in a castle on the coast of Palestine. 

Here, in the town which under the name of Paphos 
had won for itself a pre-eminence in vice and folly, 
Richard was married to Berengaria of Navarre. Here 
also he received and promised to take up the cause of Guy 
of Lusignan, the weightiest argument for so doing being 
found in the fact that Philip Augustus had taken up that 
of Conrad. Thus the two kings reached Acre only to 
Arrival of Complicate old feuds with new strifes. The 
Phiiip'^at^" siege had lasted nearly two years. In the 
•^^^^- plain was gathered the crusading host, still 

magnificent in its appointments ; on the heights were 
assembled the Turkish armies under the black banner of 
Saladin. Richard had loitered on the road as long as it 
suited his fancy or his ambition to do so ; and he had 
overwhelmed with a torrent of reproach and abuse the 
envoys from the chiefs before Acre who dared to con- 
front him at the Cyprian Famagostawith the reproof that 
his business was not to dethrone Comnenian princes and 



iipi' The Third Crusade. 131 

take their kingdoms, but to do battle with the Turk for 
the sacred heritage of Christendom. He reached Acre, 
prostrated with intermittent fever ; but indifference to the 
enterprise had given way to a fiery zeal. He had him- 
self carried out on a mattress to point the balistse which 
by discharging stones served in some measures the pur- 
poses of modern artillery. But at first the two kings 
would not act together, and this division of forces enabled 
the besieged to stand out. Their reconciliation, whether 
real or seeming, led to a combined action which was 
soon rewarded by the offer of surrender. The terms now 
proposed were rejected, and Saladin cheered the besieged 
with the hope of succours to be received from Egypt. The 
help came not, and Saladin was compelled to assent to a 
harder compact. The piece of the true cross was to be 
given up, the Christian prisoners set free, ^ ^ ^ 
and some thousands of hostages were to be J"^y '^'^■ 
detained for the payment, within forty days, of 200,000 
pieces of gold. The surrender was made. Richard took 
up his abode in the palace, Philip went to the house of 
the Templars, and the flags of the two kings Surrender of 
floated from the ramparts. Philip now re- ^^^^' 
garded himself as absolved from his vow, and he an- 
nounced his determination to return to 
France. Richard parted from his ally with Philip to 
undissembled anger and contempt, and '^'^"'^^' 
Philip, sailing to Tyre, gave to Conrad that half of the 
city of Acre which had been reserved for himself. 

The forty days wore on. Saladin would not or could 
not restore the relics of the true cross or make up the 
200,000 pieces. Richard warned him what , 

jMs-ssncre of 

the consequences of neglect would be ; and 5,000 Turk- 
he kept his word. On the fortieth day two ^^^^"^'^s^^- 
thousand seven hundred hostages were led to the top of 



132 The Crusades. CH. vii. 

a hill from which all that passed might be seen in the 
camp of Saladin ; and at a signal from the king these two 
thousand seven hundred infidels were all cut down. The 
soldiers hacked open'their bodies to search for the jewels 
and gold which they were supposed to have swallowed, 
and to obtain the gall which they kept as medicine. In 
such praiseworthy deeds as these the Christians could 
act with admirable concert. At the same hour hostages 
almost equalling in number the victims of Richard were 
slaughtered on the walls of the city by the duke of Bur- 
gundy, the representative of Philip Augustus. 

The recovery of Acre was for these merciful and de- 
vout champions of the cross a sufficient reason for plung- 
ing into beastly debauchery and excess, from which it 
was no easy task to tear them away. At length the 
army of Richard moved southwards, marching in com- 
pact array along the coast, while the fleet, generally in 
sight, advanced along the shore. On their left hung the 
hosts of Saladin, whose policy it was to wear out his 
enemy, in a country the fortresses of which he had dis- 
mantled, without fighting any pitched battles. In this 
way the crusaders and their enemies had reached the 
neighbourhood of Azotus (Ashdod), when Richard re- 
solved to face his adversary. The right wing was under 
Jacob of Avesnes ; the left was held by the Duke of 
Burgundy ; the English king was in the 

Victory of t> J » _ t, & 

Richard at Centre. The disposition of the battle showed 
some approach to generalship on his part ; 
and his coolness was seen in the steadiness with which 
he reserved for the decisive moment the charge of his 
horsemen. Their tremendous onset broke the Turkish 
ranks. The victory was decisive : but it was purchased 
with the death of Jacob of Avesnes, which Richard 
mourned as a costly sacrifice. 



1 191. The Third Crusade. 133 

His next move was to Jaffa, although he had wished 
to go on to Ascalon. The French barons insisted on the 
necessity of rebuilding the walls of Jaffa ; . 

and in spite of the sluggishness which with gotiations 
the crusaders almost always followed stren- ladin. 
uous exertion, the task was at length com- 
pleted. Richard resolved to renew the war with vigour, 
and announced to Saladin that nothing less would con- 
tent him than the surrender of all the territory which had 
been included in the kingdom of Jerusalem under Bald- 
win the leper, (p. 104). Saladin replied by an offer to 
yield up all lands lying between the Jordan and the sea ; 
but it soon became clear that the negotiations were a 
mere pretext for gaining time, and Richard 
determined to advance upon Jerusalem. The November. 
army reached Ramlah, encountering some 
hardships from rain and tempests. Still it seemed 
that they might soon win th€ prize to which they had 
looked forward as the adequate recompense of all 
human toil. It was not to be so, and the hindrance 
came from the military orders and from the men of Pisa. 
These asserted that the reconquest of Jerusalem would 
be the dissolution of the enterprise. The army would 
never be kept together, so soon as they had once paid 
their vows before the tomb of the Redeemer. The 
crusaders fell back to Ascalon, and there the winter was 
spent partly in restoring the fortifications, but for the 
more part in incessant feuds. The duke of Austria had 
learnt during the siege of Acre to look on Richard as an 
enemy. The cause, it was said, was an ^ , , 

•' , feud between 

insult done to the Austrian banner, which the English 
Richard, on seeing it raised upon the ram- du^ of Aus^ 
parts, seized and flung into the ditch. The ^"^' 
hatred thus excited was embittered, we are told, by the 



134 '^Ji^ Crusades. ch. vii. 

injunction or desire for the personal help of all in the 
camp for the rebuilding of the walls of Ascalon. The 
duke replied that he was neither a mason nor a carpen- 
ter ; and the lion-hearted king retorted by a kick which 
threw him down. This may be romance or fiction ; but 
the disorganization of the force is sufficiently shown by 
the facts that the claim of Conrad to the throne of Jeru- 
salem was urged by the Genoese, that of Guy by the men 
of Pisa ; that the French abandoned the camp because 
Richard was no longer able to pay them ; and that the 
jealousy of Conrad could be satisfied with nothing less 
than an alliance with Saladin. The end had almost come. 
Richard knew that his presence in England was a matter 
of life and death, and he now in his offers to the Turkish 
sultan abated his claim to the mere possession of the holy 
city and the restoration of the true cross. To this last 
surrender Saladin had in the previous negotiations made 
no objection. He had now become more orthodox or 
more scrupulous, and he could not give even indirect 
encouragement to the idolatry which would worship a 
piece of wood. Nor was a treaty set on foot for the mar- 
riage of Richard's sister Joanna to Saphadin the sultan's 
brother more successful. The English king even con- 
sented to give up the cause of Guy and sanction the 
choice of Conrad of Tyre for the Latin crown. The mur- 
A. D. 1192. ^^^ of Conrad by two of the fraternity known 
April 27. a^s ^jjg Assassins drew on Richard a storm of 

indignation ; but evidence for the crime there was none. 
A more popular claimant appeared in Henry, count of 

Champagne, whose election to the throne of 
Champagne Godfrey was followed by his marriage to the. 
of jSusdln widow of Conrad. The grief of Guy was 

consoled by the sovereignty of Cyprus which 
was still in the hands of his descendants when the 



1 192. The Third Ct'usade. 135 

Crescent in 1453 displaced the Cross on Justinian's 
church in Constantinople. 

Disunion and bad generalship had practically sealed 
the doom of the crusade; but for Richard the capture 
of Jerusalem still had crreater charms than ,, , ,^ , 

•* . - * , March of Rich- 

the punishment of his brother John, In ard towards 

T T 1 .1 Jerusalem. 

June, accordmgly, the army once more 
began its march to the Holy City. The tidings of his 
approach caused almost panic terror among the Turks ; 
but when they had reached Bethlehem the crusaders dis- 
covered that their forces were insufficient for the invest- 
ment of the cit}' ; that to a commissariat they could 
scarcely make a pretence ; that they ran an imminent 
risk of being cut off" from their base of supplies ; and, 
lastly, that the Turks had destroyed the wells and cis- 
terns for miles round. It was impossible to resist the 
logic of these facts ; and Richard made a last desperate 
effort to divert their joint forces to an invasion of Egv"pt 
and the attack of Cairo. He was led up a hill from 
which he was told that he might see Jeru- ^ , , 

^ •' Retreat of the 

salem ; he held up his shield before his face army from 
as being unworthy to behold the cit\' which ^ ^ ^°^" 
he had failed to wrest from the power of the infidel. The 
army was broken up. Some went to Jaffa, more to Acre ; 
and Saladin, advancing with rapid marches to the former 
cits", so pressed it that the besieged pledged themselves 
to surrender if within twenty-four hours they should not 
be effectually succoured. Within that time Richard ap- 
peared upon the scene. His onset was more fierce, his 
valour and exploits more astonishing than ^ ,. , ,^ ^ 

^■L , . , . r • Relief of Jaffa. 

ever. 1 he besiegers retreated m confusion, 
to learn presently with greater shame that they had been 
scared by a mere handful of Christian horsemen. But 
if the splendid braven.- of the English king struck terror 



136 The Crusades. CH. vii. 

into the multitude, there were not lacking some, it is 
said, in which it excited a chivalrous admiration. Rich- 
ard was dismounted, we are told, in the thick of the 
fight, and Saladin's brother Saphadin, whose son Rich- 
ard had at his request knighted, sent him two horses to 
enable him to renew the struggle. The crusaders were 
victorious : but Richard had no wish to use the advan- 
tage thus gained except for the purpose of gaining the 
best terms from the enemy. The compact ultimately 
_ , made pledged them to a truce of three years 

Inice between . 

the crusaders and eight months. Ascalon was to be dis- 
mantled : but the Christians were to remain 
in possession of Jaffa and Tyre with the country between 
them ; and all pilgrims were to have the right of enter- 
ing Jerusalem untaxed. 

Of this privilege the French at Acre desired to avail 
themselves. Richard indignantly refused their request. 
They had done nothing to secure the peace 
jerusXm? ° o^ to dcscrve it ; and their allies only should 
be suffered to enter the Sacred City. Among 
these pilgrims was the bishop of Salisbury, who became 
the guest of Saladin and heard from his lips praises of 
the valour of Richard which were not extended to his 
generalship. The thrust was rather evaded than parried 
by the reply that the earth could not produce two war- 
riors who could be put into comparison with the Syrian 
sultan and the English king. 

So ended the third crusade, with its work barely more 
than begun, or rather marred by the infatuated waste of 
splendid opportunities ; yet not with an ex- 
thfrd ^crusade! tremity of humiliation which would con- 
vince even devotees of the absurdity of 
further efforts. A large strip of coast bounded by two 
important cities still remained as a base of operations in 



1 192. The Third Crusade. 137 

any renewed contest, and much had been done to neu- 
tralize the effects which without doubt Saladin had an- 
ticipated from his victory at Tiberias and his conquest 
of Jerusalem. 

On the morning after his embarkation at Acre, Rich- 
ard turned to take a last look on the fading shores of 
Palestine. ' Most holy land,' he exclaimed ^ . . 

•' Captivity of 

with outstretched arms, ' I commend thee Richard i. in 
to the care of the Almighty ! May He grant 
me life to return and deliver thee from the yoke of the 
infidels !' His fleet, carrying his wife and sister, had pre- 
ceded him and reached Sicily in safety. He himself fol- 
lowed in a single ship, and at the end of a month of 
baffling winds found himself at Corfu, where he hired 
some trading vessels to take him to Ragusa and Zara. 
Sailing on, he was thrown by a storm on the Istrian 
coast between Aquileia and Venice, when the perils of 
his situation must have begun to force themselves upon 
him. The kinsfolk of Conrad of Tyre bore no love for 
his supposed murderer ; the French king was in treaty 
with his brother John ; and Henry VI., the emperor of 
Germany, and son of Barbarossa, owed him a grudge 
for his alliance with Tancred of Sicily (p. 128). Still 
Richard thought, it seems, that a pilgrim's disguise and 
an unshorn beard would carry him through all dangers. 
Having reached the fortress of Goritz, which was held by 
Maynard, a nephew of Conrad, he sent his companion, 
Baldwin of Bethune, with the gift of a ruby ring, to ask 
a passport for himself and Hugh the merchant, pilgrims 
going home from Jerusalem. Maynard looked long at the 
ruby, and at length said, ' This jewel can come only from 
a king ; that king must be Richard of England. Tell him 
he may come to me in peace.' Not trusting his promise, 
Richard fled during the night. Baldwin and seven others 



138 The Crusades. ch. vii. 

who remained with him were seized and kept as host- 
ages. At Freisach six more of his companions were 
taken, although Richard himself escaped with one knight 
and a boy who knew the language of the country. This 
boy, sent to the market at Erperg, near Vienna, showed 
his money too freely, was caught, put to the torture, and 
revealed the name of his master. Surrounded in his 
house by troops of armed men, Richard refused to yield 
except to their chief; and that chief has- 
Dec 21^^' tened to take charge of him. It was Leo- 
pold, who may have felt that he could now 
taste the sweets of revenge for the insults (whatever these 
may have been) which Richard had put upon him in 
Palestine. But Leopold was induced to compound with 
his feelings by a bribe of 60,000/. ; and Richard, as the 
prisoner of Henry VL, was closely guarded in a Ty- 
rolese castle. 

The tidings of his captivity were received with sorrow 
by his subjects generally, with undissembled joy by his 

brother John and Philip Augustus of France. 
A. D. 1193. ■' . 

Exertions Of thcse two prmccs the former prepared to 

iTberation of fight for the crown, and after the first reverse 
Richard. accepted an armistice : the latter, having 

sent to Richard to renounce his allegiance, invaded Nor- 
mandy, and met with a complete repulse at Rouen. At 
length the place of Richard's imprisonment was dis- 
covered by William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, the 
English chancellor ; or, as the romance would have it, by 
his faithful minstrel Blondel. The pope was at once 
assailed with entreaties to come forward for his rescue. 
Peter of Blois, archdeacon of Bath, reminded Caelestine 
III. of his debt of gratitude to so faithful a son of the 
Church. His mother Eleanor wrote to him in less mea- 
sured terms. Where, she asked, was the zeal of Elijah 



1 193' "^^^^ Third O'Msade. 139 

against Ahab, of John the Baptist against Herod, of 
Alexander III. against the father of the emperor who 
had wrought this iniquity in Christendom ? ' For trifling 
reasons your cardinals are sent in all their power to the 
most savage lands ; in this great cause you have appointed 
not even a subdeacon or an acolyth. You would not 
have much debased the dignity of the holy see had you 
set out in person to rescue him. Restore to me my son, 
O man of God, if thou art indeed a man of God and not 
a man of blood. If you remain lukewarm, the Most High 
may require his blood at your hands.' In later letters she 
asks him if he thinks that his soul can be safe while he is 
thus slack in rescuing the sheep of his fold, and tells him 
that he ought to be willing to lay down his life for one in 
whose behalf he was unwilling to speak or write a single 
word. The truth is that Caelestine was full of zeal for 
Richard's cause : he was only waiting with true papal 
caution for Richard's deliverance to express his zeal 
emphatically. 

At length, after nearly four months, Richard was 
brought before the diet at Hagenau. The captive might 
have pleaded the incompetence of the tribu- ^. , ,, , 

Richard before 

nal ; he chose to answer the charges brought the diet at 
against him with arguments which convinced ^s^"^"- 
his judges of his innocence and made the emperor willing 
to treat about his ransom. This ransom was raised by 
new taxes laid on his subjects, whose resources, even 
when taxed to the uttermost, seemed unlikely to satisfy 
imperial avarice ; and there was the further danger that 
whatever might be the sum raised, John might outbid 
them. This upright and honourable prince had offered 
to pay to Henry VI. the sum of 20,000/. for every month 
during which the imprisonment of Richard might be pro- 
longed ; but there was a limit to the patience of the Ger- 



I40 The Crusades. CH.viii. 

A. D. 1194. man barons, and their words convinced 
lease^'^of Rkh- Henry that this hmit had been reached. 
^'■'^- Richard was released, hostages being given 

for that portion of his ransom which was not paid on the 
spot. His dehverance set free the tongue of pope Caeles- 
tine, who now wrote to the Austrian duke as well as to 
the emperor, insisting that the ransom should be given 
back and the hostages restored. The emperor paid no 
heed to the command, but Leopold was brought to obedi- 
His return to cnce by the discipline of excommunication 
England. ^csidi sickncss, and Richard after four years' 

absence landed in his own kingdom to impoverish his 
people by fresh exactions for quarrels as useless as the 
enterprise which had taken him across the seas. 



CHAPTER Vni. 

THE FOURTH CRUSADE. 



The story of the fourth crusade is soon told. It was 
an effort prompted by the policy of a pope to whom the 
,, . . diversion of forces which the German em- 

Motives of 

the chief pcror might turn against himself was of su- 

promoters of . ^ , 

the fourth preme importance, — of an emperor whose 

crusade. consciousncss of ill dcsert made him 

catch eagerly at an opportunity for winning the favour of 
his German subjects — and of chiefs who hoped to take 
advantage of the weakened condition of the Turks for 
the promotion of their personal interests against the 
wishes and even against the warning and protests of the 
Latin Christians in Palestine. 

Saladin, the chivalrous antagonist of the lion-hearted 



1 193* The Fourth Crusade. 141 

Richard, was deiad ; and the fabric of his empire soon 
showed signs of decay. His brother Sapha- ^ ^ ^^^^ 
din, upheld by Saladin's soldiers, maintained P^j^^°^jj j j. 
his ground against the competition of Sala- consequences, 
din's children who ruled in Egypt, Damascus, and 
Aleppo. But although Christians and Mahomedans 
were alike weighed down by the pressure of a terrible 
famine, the Knights of St. John longed to strike a blow 
by which they thought that they could surely crush their 
enemies. Their efforts to stir up a crusade in England 
and in Europe were seconded by pope Cselestine III., 
who promised all the spiritual rewards which had called 
forth the heroism or the brutality of the earlier pilgrim 
warriors. On Philip Augustus all entreaties were thrown 
away. Richard of England, it is said, was nursing 
dreams of conquests which were to place him in the seat 
of the Byzantine Caesars : but for the time he was busied 
with the less pleasing task of wringing money from im- 
poverished subjects. 

But if pope Caslestine hoped that by urging this cru- 
sade he should rid himself of his mortal enemy, he was 
doomed to disappointment. The death of Tancred, 
king of Sicily, and of his heir enabled the emperor 
Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa to claim the island by 
right of his wife Constantia (p. 128) ; and the ^ 

1 • 1 Encouragement 

force which Germany might bring together given to the 
for the reconquest of the Holy Land could emperor ^ ^ ^ 
be made available for strengthening the im- ^^""^ ^^■ 
perial power in Southern Europe. Thus the enterprise 
received his strongest approval, and his encouragement 
stirred up a throng of barons, knights and prelates to 
assume the cross. But he had no intention of journey- 
ing to Palestine in person. Money and men he was 
ready to contribute ; but his own task lay nearer home. 



142 The Crusades. ch. viii. 

He had levelled the walls of Capua and 
DeSthS " Naples, and was besieging a SiciHan castle, 
Henry VI. ^lien his own imprudence brought on a fever 
which cut short at the age of thirty a career shameful 
for its merciless and wholesale tyranny. 

His barons with their followers reached the Holy Land 
at a time when, although the truce made with Saladin 

(p.nO had expired, the Latin Christians were 

Arrival of his r ' 

barons with not disposcd to rcucw hostilities. But the 

in^the Ho?y Germans had come to fight, not to debate ; 

Land. ^sl^ their energy was to be tested by Sapha- 

din, who resolved to be first in striking a blow. Jaffa was 

taken before any succour could reach it from 

Jaffa by ° Acrc, its inhabitants slaughtered by hun- 

Saphadin. ^j-eds or by thousands, and its fortifications, 

the work on which Richard and his soldiers had toiled 

so hard (p. 132), utterly demohshed. The arrival of a 

second body of German crusaders seemed to justify a 

fresh movement which was directed against Berytos. 

Saphadin compelled them to fight between Tyre and 

Sidon : but he did so to his grievous cost. His army was 

for the time broken, and Jaffa with Sidon and other cities 

came again into the possession of the Chris- 
Arrival of . ^ , . _ , - T . 

fresh cru- tians. In the town of Berytos they found, it 

ofnTad""*^^'^ is said, provisions stored up for three years, 
!^i?,^°P °f and the power and confidence of the con- 

Hildesheim. ^ 

querors were largely increased by the arrival 
of a third body of armed pilgrims led by Conrad, bishop 
of Hildesheim, chancellor of the empire. 

The crusaders were, in all seeming, in the 

A. B. II97. ° 

Siege of the f^H career of victory ; but the advantages 

CQ-Stlc 01 • 

Thoron. which they had gained were lost almost m 

a moment by their own infatuated bloodthirstiness. 
They had besieged the castle of Thoron, and so under- 



1 197- The Fourth Crusade. 143 

mined the rocks on which it rested, that the garrison, 
foreseeing the inevitable end, agreed to surrender on 
the single stipulation that they should be allowed a free 
passage into Moslem territory. The terms were accept- 
ed ; but so loud were still the threats of vengeance, so 
persistent, it is said, the assurances which the French- 
men gave to the besieged of the deadly intentions of the 
Germans, that the miserable garrison resolved to fight to 
the death rather than fall into their hands. They lined 
the passages which the besiegers had scooped out in the 
rock, and their desperate resistance filled with dismay 
the savages who but a little while ago had ^ 

° _ ^ Complete de- 

been crying out for their blood. The dis- feat of the 

Cjriis3.ciGrs 

organization which had not once or twice 
disgraced the armies of the earlier crusaders was seen 
again in even greater degree. The chiefs fled from the 
camp in the night, and their followers woke to find 
themselves deserted. A confusion ensued so utter and 
helpless that an enemy might have won a victory almost 
without striking a blow ; but the Saracens • were scarcely 
less exhausted than the Christians, and these on being 
gathered after their dispersion were able to accuse each 
the other of obstinacy, cowardice, or treachery. Conrad 
of Hildesheim, hastening to Jaffa with the purpose of 
restoring its walls, had won a battle fought against Sa- 
phadin at a cost fully equal to any profit which might 
accrue from it. The tidings of the death of Henry VI . 
dealt the final blow to the enterprise, by recalling to 
Germany those princes who had an interest in the elec- 
tion of the emperor. Those who remained 
behind took refuge in Jaffa, only, however capture^o'fjaffa, 
to meet their doom a few months later at f,"*^ massacre of 

the crusaders. 

the hands of a Moslem host which suddenly 

attacked and stormed the city, while the Germans were 



144 '^^^^ Crusades. ch. ix. 

showing their devotion to St. Martin by drinking them- 
selves into a state of helpless stupidity. 

In spite of these disasters the mockery of the Latin 

kingdom of Jerusalem was still carried on. On the death 

of Henry of Champagne (p. 134), his widow Isabella was 

. , advised by the grand-master of the Hospi- 

Almericof •' . , • r x • f 

Lusignan tallers to marry Almeric of Lusignan who 

sal«n and™" had recently succeeded his brother Guy as 
Cyprus. king of Cyprus. Isabella showed no unwil- 

lingness to follow this counsel, and with her fourth hus- 
band she added the title of queen of Cyprus to that of 
queen of Jerusalem. If the politics of the time repre- 
sented Cyprus as a convenient retreat in cases of emer- 
gency, such considerations have little interest or none. 
The only valid plea for keeping up the fiction of the Lat- 
in kingdom in Palestine would be found in the likelihood 
that the abandonment of the title would be regarded 
throughout Europe as a confession of defeat, and would 
be followed by the complete extinction of the crusading 
impulse. 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE FIFTH CRUSADE. 

At its outset, if not in its results, the fifth crusade exhi- 
bits something like a return to the spirit of the age which 
gave so vast a force to the preaching of the hermit Peter 
and the eloquence of Urban II. In the chair of St. Pe- 
ter there was now seated a man of far great- 

A. D. I198. -I • 1 1 

Election of er powcr than the pope who stirred the Wes- 
tern world to a fever of enthusiasm at the 
council of Clermont. At the age of thirty-seven — an age 
without example, perhaps, in the annals of the papacy — 
Lothair, of the house of Conti, cardinal of St. Mark, had 
been chosen pope by the unanimous voice of all the car- 



1 198. The Fifth Crusade, 145 

dinals who were present, at a time when every other 
power seemed to be tottering, if not in the very throes of 
dissolution. The Byzantine empire was in its decrepi- 
tude ; the Latin kingdom of Palestine was reduced to a 
mere strip of coast; an infant was king of Naples; the 
French king Philip Augustus was paying in whatever mea- 
sure the penalties of an evil life ; the man who was hoping 
to wear the English crown was the vindictive and despi- 
cable John, whose treachery had slain his father. Every- 
where was disunion, faction, and deadly hatred : and in 
the midst of this chaos appeared the one man whose se- 
rene tranquillity, based on the consciousness of a super- 
human commission and on the sanction of a divine law, 
was undisturbed by the storms raging around him. The 
influence, righteously acquired by Leo and Gregory the 
Great, and vastly extended (not altogether by the most 
righteous means) by Gregory VH. (p. 20) was wielded 
with even greater effect by the youthful pontiff whose eye 
surveyed with calm yet exhaustive scrutiny the troubled 
scene of European politics. 

To this exalted position the undefined claims of pre- 
vious popes would probably never have raised Innocent 
III., had it not been for the crusades. In _„ 

' . Effect of the 

these enterprises the popes had a pretext crusades 
ready to hand for interfering with the affairs the^n^dlc? 
of every nation and country, for suspending popg^^ ^^^ 
or annulling civil jurisdiction, for levying 
taxes under the name of alms, for releasing barons from 
the allegiance due to their sovereigns, inferior tenants 
from their chiefs, debtors from their creditors. The cru- 
sade became a task which the popes might impose for 
their souls' health on refractory emperors and kings. All 
whose hearts were filled with the love of Christ must long 
to take part in the holy work of rescuing his sepulchre 

L 



146 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

from the hands of the unbelievers. If any were careless 
or indifferent to a duty thus constraining, it must be be- 
cause their lives were not as pure, their faith not so sound 
as it should be, an,d by such men the divine power for re- 
buke and even chastisement committed to the vicars of 
Christ and of the prince of the apostles must make itself 
felt. If kings and great feudal chiefs would prove them- 
selves to be good Christians, they must put on the cross : 
and the assumption of the badge imposed an obligation 
from which, if the popes were bent on keeping them to it, 
it would be almost, if not altogether, hopeless for them 
to escape. If they resisted, their sentence was excom- 
munication ; and excommunication, not removed, meant 
death here and hereafter. 

The effect of this policy (for such, however sincere 
some of the popes may have been, it assuredly must be 

called) showed itself especially in the weak- 
Weakening ' T . . , . , 1-1 

of the im- enmg of the imperial power, without which 
periai power. ^^^^ ^ supremacy as that of Innocent III. 
over the sovereigns of his age would have been an im- 
possibility. The emperor Conrad had been driven to 
take the cross by the awful pictures which Bernard drev/ 
of the judgment day (p. 90) : he came back shorn prac- 
tically of all his power. Barbarossa had obeyed the 
papal bidding, only to die in a distant land ; and the 
struggle was to be renewed in a later crusade with a 
sovereign who was only in his cradle when the cardinal 
Lothair began his career as pope. 

But if the crusades and the undefined powers which 

they brought to the popes carried to its ut- 

mistmsf of most height the fabric of their supremacy, 

Rome by the they began at the same time to undermine 

peoples of i|-^ p^i no time had the Roman court pos- 

Europe. , , . , - r 

sessed a high reputation for pecuniary 



1 189. The Fifth Crusade. 147 

probity ; more commonly it had been known as the 
seed-bed in which venahty, jobbery, and corruption 
flourished with rank luxuriance. All at once, owing to 
the new impulse given to the energies of Christendom, 
the popes became the possessors or administrators of 
revenues more vast than any of which in earlier ages 
they could have ventured to dream. Then as in these 
enterprises failure followed on failure, and the results 
attained seemed wholly inadequate to the outlay, the 
suspicion was awakened that the funds obtained for the 
crusades were sometimes diverted to other purposes. 
The suspicion might be unjust, and the popes might 
appoint barons and bishops not belonging to their court 
to be trustees of revenues which were not even to be 
kept in Italy. Still in spite of these precautions the old 
sayings were repeated, and they came not unfrequently 
with chilling force just when the crusading enthusiasm 
had been fanned into the fiercest flame. 

This suspicion threatened to be fatal to the new enter- 
prise which Innocent sought to promote for the salvation 
of the Holy Land, — nay, for that of all 
Christians whether of the East or the West, innocent to 
Not even Urban II. had been more fervent mistrust. 
in his exhortations, more lavish in his 
promises of eternal happiness, more stern in his threat- 
enings of endless perdition. Still from these loftier 
regions he had to descend to defences against charges 
of personal corruption, and to appomt for the manage- 
ment of the crusading revenues committees to which it 
was supposed that suspicion could not possibly attach 
itself. More than this, the pope and his cardinals must 
show themselves ready to bear to the full the burdens 
which they sought to lay upon others. A tenth of all 
their revenues would be devoted to the rescue of the 



148 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

Holy Land from the power of the infidel. The clergy 
in all other countries were to contribute at least a fortieth 
part, and the laity should be everywhere urged to con- 
tribute to the utmost of their power. The funds so raised 
were to be put into a safe place, the amount only being 
notified at Rome : and hard-hearted indeed must he be 
who would hold aloof from such a work of love and 
mercy. 

But the indifference with which his words were every- 
where received furnishes a fresh proof that the work of 
Fuik of a- genuine crusade can be set in motion only 

NeuiUy. |^y ^^^ combination of authority with the 

enthusiasm of the demagogue. So it had been in the 
days of the hermit Peter (p. 26), and of the saint who 
had tried to cover the hermit with contempt. So, hap- 
pily for Innocent, it was now, when Fulk, a parish priest 
of NeuiUy near Paris, was smitten with the crusading 
fever. Even as a priest he had for a time led a life of 
miserable slackness, if not of gross vice ; but his heart 
was touched with the penitence which was kindled in 
Mary Magdalene or Mary of Egypt. He had striven to 
atone for his sins by the severest asceticism, and to 
remedy his deplorable ignorance by attending the lectures 
of Peter the Chanter, in whom Innocent hoped to find 
the most eloquent preacher of his crusade. This hope 
was not to be realized. Peter was seized by a fatal ill- 
ness, but his last words bequeathed to Fulk the mission 
which he had himself received from the pope. 

Even before the death of Peter, Fulk had preached in 

the streets and lanes of the great city, and his words 

had melted the most obdurate and evil-lived 

A. D. I189. 

sinners to tears. Still the spell of his oratory 
seemed to be losing its power, and he had gone back 
to his parish work at Neuilly when the last charge of 



1 198. The Fifth Crusade. 149 

Peter the Chanter animated him with an irresistible im- 
pulse. He came forward now not merely as the preacher 
of a crusade, but as the stern reprover of vice and of 
spiritual wickedness in high places. Like Urban and 
Eugenius, Innocent saw his opportunity. He wrote to 
Fulk, expressing his hearty approbation of his work, and 
biddin him, in concert with some of the Black and 
White monks, and with the sanction of the legate Peter 
of Capua, go up and down the land calling ^ ^ <^ 
on all men to repent and to give proof The mission of 
of penitence by hastening to the land of tioned by the 

pope. 

promise. 

Soon the tidings spread from city to city that a preacher 
had appeared whose powers were not inferior to those of 
St. Bernard, His miracles were not indeed Effects of his 
so numerous, nor, for the most part, of the ^ioi"^'^<^^- 
sort which ascribed to Bernard the excommunication of 
troublesome flies, who under this potent sentence fell 
dead from the ceiling, and were swept up from the 
floor by shovelfuls. His humour was not less ready than 
his eloquence. His hearers strove for pieces of his 
clothing to be kept as sacred relics. One noisy by- 
stander had caused him special annoyance. He turned 
to his audience, and told them that he had not blessed 
his own garments, but that he would bless those of this 
man. In a moment the man's clothes were in tatters, 
and the fragments carried off in triumph as relics en- 
dowed with miraculous power. 

Yet, taken at its best, the effect of Fulk's preaching 
was not equal to that of Bernard or of Peter the Hermit. 
His words might enjoin high austerities : his appearance 
might not belie his words, but it did not convey indispu- 
table evidence of their truth. He looked and lived much 
like other men ; and, what was worse, he had to do 



150 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

battle with the fatal suspicion which Innocent had striven 
with the utmost earnestness to shake off. He became the 
receiver of vast sums of money ; and murmurs would make 
themselves heard which asserted that all these moneys 
were not used as they ought to be. His influence was on 
the whole waning : but he was not to see the beginning 
A. D. 1202. of the enterprise which he had so strenuously 
Death of Fulk. promoted. Fulk died of a fever at Neuilly, 
while the crusaders were still at Venice, and his mantle 
seemed to fall on the Cistercian abbot Martin. 

Other preachers also girded up their loins for the great 
work, and their words told especially on some of the 
younger men among the French princes. Foremost 
among these was Theobald, count of Champagne, who 
had seen only twenty summers, and whose 
The chiefs goal was wcU nigh reached already. With 
'^rusade^'^^ him Louis, count of Blois and Chartres, cast 

in his lot, followed by Simon of Montfort, 
the infamous leader of the yet future Holy War against 
the Albigensians, Walter of Brienne, and with many 
others, last but not least Geoffrey of Villehardouin, 
marshal of Champagne, the historian of the crusade. 
Some months later the badge was assumed by Baldwin, 
count of Flanders, by Hugh of St. Pol, by the count of 
Perche, and many more. 

The followers of these chiefs amounted already to a 
formidable army. But the leaders had no adequate 
navy at their command, and the history of all the pre- 
ceding expeditions had convinced men at 
thl^^Frei!ch" ^^.st of the desperate risks to be encountered 
barons to \^ \}^q_ land ioumey across Europe and the 

Venice. . ^ 1 i 

Lesser Asia. One state alone there was 
which was fully equal to all demands that might be made 
upon it for ships ; and of the crusades this state at least 



1 198-1202. The Fifth Crusade. 151 

had no just reason to complain. These armed pilgrim- 
ages had vastly increased its commerce and its profits, 
and had produced in Europe a general desire for eastern 
products which insured the continuance of this wide- 
spread trade. To Venice accordingly the 

r , -,. . . r ° -^ A. D. I20I. 

eyes or the crusadmg chiefs were turned, 
and the envoys of the counts of Blois, Flanders, and 
Champagne appeared there in the first week of Lent 
before the doge, or duke, Henry Dandolo, venerable in 
his age of more than ninety years, and the victim of that 
Byzantine cruelty which had almost, if not wholly, de- 
prived him of his sight. * Sire,' said Villehardouin, the 
ambassador from the count of Champagne, ' we are 
come in the name of the great barons of France, who 
are pledged to avenge by the conquest of Jerusalem the 
insults offered to our Lord Jesus Christ. From no other 
state can they obtain the help which they desire, and 
they implore you for the sake of the Holy Cross and the 
Holy Sepulchre to furnish them with ships and all other 
things necessary for conveying their men across the 
sea.* ' On what terms ?' asked the doge. ' On any that 
you may name,' was the reply, ' so long as we may be 
able to bear them.' The doge promised an answer at 
the end of eight days ; and when these were passed, the 
envoys were told that for four marks of ^ 

•^ Compact for 

silver for each horse and two for each man the conveyance 

,1 ,,. ,,^ .- ,. .of the crusad- 

the republic would furnish ships, prOVl- ers toPalestine. 

sioned for nine months, for the conveyance 
of 4,500 knights with their horses, 9,000 squires, and 20,- 
000 infantry. The total cost would be 85,000 marks of 
silver ; but the republic would further join the expedi- 
tion with 50 galleys of its own. The terms were not un^ 
reasonable, and the envoys departed, some homewards, 
some to seek further aid from Genoa and Pisa. Here 



152 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

they fared but ill ; and Villehardouin reached Troyes 

only to find Theobald the count of Champagne prostrate 

with hopeless sickness. In his joy at seeing him, the 

young man mounted his horse : but it was for the last 

time. In a few days he died, and the count of Perche 

soon followed him to the grave. 

The count of Champagne was to have been the chief 

of the enterprise. The offer of the command was now 

refused by the duke of Burgundy as by many others : it 

was accepted at last by Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. 

But it was not until the following year that the crusading 

forces were fairly in motion ; and their lack 
A. D. 1202. ^ , . . „ . . 

Failure of of cohesion was at once seen m all its mis- 

ders'^tomake chievous effccts. Venice may have driven — 
up the sum there is no just ground for thinking that she 

agreed on jo q 

with the had driven — a hard bargain ; but as it was 

^r t^ n £ 1 1 3. US 

certain that from her terms she would make 
jio abatement, it was clear that the interests of the crusa- 
ders should lead them to adhere to or give up the compact 
in a body. To divide their forces was merely to lay a 
heavier burden on those who should still seek the aid of 
Venice. But of two courses the crusaders were well nigh 
sure to choose the worse, and while some sailed across the 
bay of Biscay and through the straits of Gibraltar, others 
embarked at Marseilles, Others again found their way to 
ports in Southern Italy, leaving Villehardouin to deplore 
at Venice the wretched mischief wrought by these deser- 
tions. It seemed at first that they had dealt a death-blow 
to the enterprise. The Venetian fleet was ready, in per- 
fect order and magnificently equipped : but the price, the 
85,000 silver marks, must be paid in advance, and the 
counts of Flanders and St. Pol and the marquis of Mont- 
ferrat could only make up 51,000 after selling all their 
plate and putting the utmost strain upon their credit. 



1202. The Fifth Crusade. 153 

Of this dilemma the doge proposed a solution which 
at first excited the astonishment, the dismay, and even 
the disgust of the crusaders. The war which ^ 

T 11- 1 • It Proposal to 

pope Innocent had striven to kmdle was commute the 
strictly a holy war, directed only against the an^Jxpedi-^ 
infidel for the rescue of lands, which formed 2ara.^^^'"^' 
the inalienable heritage of Christendom. But 
the Venetian doge now announced that the 34,000 marks 
might be discharged by conquering for the republic the 
town of Zara, which had been, so he averred, unjustly 
seized by the king of Hungary. The summer wore on. 
The feast of the Nativity of the Virgin had come round, 
when Dandolo, ascending the pulpit in the church of St. 
Mark, declared his readiness to live or die with the pil- 
grims of the cross, and then, going to the high altar, fixed 
the blood-red badge on his high cotton cap. The sight 
called forth the tears and wakened the enthusiasm of all 
who were present. The less pleasant features of the 
compact lost their repulsive aspect ; and the interests of 
Venice were further consulted by the agreement that 
she should have one half of all conquests that might be 
made. 

A new actor now appeared upon the scene. For some 
years past the palace of the Byzantine Caesars had been 

defiled by a series of bloody murders or of 

. . A. D. 1195. 

mutilations still more cruel. Emperor after Mission to 

emperor had been put to death or blinded seek aid for 
and thrust into a dungeon. The latter tyz^i^^^lL 
penalty was the doom of Isaac Angelus ^^*'°^' ^^^^'^ 
when his throne was usurped by his brother 
Alexios, a tyrant not wise in his generation. Isaac, 
laxly guarded, was able to communicate with his parti- 
sans ; his son Alexios, having contrived to make his 
escape in a Pisan vessel to Ancona, appeared to plead 



154 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

his cause before Innocent at Rome. He received no 
genial welcome. The pope had perhaps a better hope 
of bringing about the submission of the Eastern to the 
Western church through the possessor of a throne than 
through claimants or pretenders. He was better received 
at the court of his brother-in-law, the Swabian chief 
Philip ; and his messengers now appeared in Venice to 
implore the help of the commercial republic and the 
high chivalry of Western Christendom. 

Not impossibly the vision which this crusade was des- 
tined for a time to realize may have floated before the 
mind of Dandolo, as he listened to their earnest plead- 
^ , ings ; but for the present he confined himself 

Determination i r 

of the Vene- to words of cncouragement and sympathy. 
on^he*expe-^ The task immediately before them was the 
dition to Zara. conqucst of Zara ; and Venice stuck to her 
bond with inflexible pertinacity. In vain the abbot 
Martin, who with his followers had crossed the Tyrolese 
Alps, protested against the invasion of territories belong- 
ing to the Hungarian king who had himself assumed the 
cross. They were told that the scheme might be given 
up on the payment of the 34,000 silver marks. In vain 
Innocent sent his cardinal legate Peter of Capua with 
orders to interdict the Venetians from assailing Zara 
even with their own forces, and to lead the army of the 
pilgrims himself to Palestine. The legate was told that 
he might embark in their fleet if he pleased, but that he 
must not dare to exercise his legatine authority when 
he had done so. The indignant cardinal hastened to 
Rome. Some few drew back from the enterprise : and 
the marquis of Montferrat pleaded pressing engage- 
ments which withheld him at present from taking the 
command. 

But with the main body of the crusaders the Venetian 



I202. The Fifth Crusade. 155 

fleet set sail, in a magnificent order and with a display 
of power which seemed capable of sweeping 
everything before it. The people of Zara, qjfgf ^ (J"zJra!' 
dismayed at the sight of the armament, of- 
fered at once to surrender on the best terms which they 
could get. The doge promised to consider the matter 
with the barons : but while they were thus in council, 
Simon of Montfort, the destined hero of a bloody crusade 
against heretical Christians, upbraided the Zarans with 
their cowardice, and assured them that the conquest of 
Zara was no part of the crusading plan. When the sum- 
mons for the envoys came from the doge's tent, they were 
nowhere to be found. They had hastened back into the 
city, and the walls had been manned for a siege. In the 
camp Guido, the abbot of Vaux Cernay, warned the army 
that they were pilgrims of the cross, under oath not to 
make war against Christians in communion with the Holy 
See. In high wrath Dandolo insisted that the barons 
should keep to their engagements. Few dared, perhaps 
few wished, to gainsay him. For five days Zara was be- 
sieged ; on the sixth it fell. The doge took 
possession, but he divided the spoil with his ^ov. 15?^' 
allies. 

The reduction of Zara raised hopes which were to be 
speedily disappointed. The crusaders wished to sail at 
once for the Holy Land. The doge was de- 

, 11- • Proposal to di- 

termmed to guard his conquest agamst at- vert the cru- 
tacks from the Hungarian king. Winter restorationof 
was coming on; the countries of Western Aiexios at Con- 

^ ' stantinople. 

Asia were suffering grievously from famine, 
and a voyage then undertaken would bring with it the 
miseries of starvation. The only course was to make Zara 
their winter quarters. The proposal called forth vehe- 
ment opposition, which was not suppressed without 



156 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

^ , bloodshed. The arrival of the marquis of 

December. 1 • r 1 

Montferrat to take the chief command gave 
promise of more harmonious action ; but the crusade was 
to be a second time diverted from its original purpose. 
Envoys came from the Byzantine Alexios and the Swa- 
bian Philip urging that the purposes of the expedition 
would be better achieved by placing Alexios on the throne 
of Constantinople than by attempts, which would certain- 
ly be in vain, to wrest Palestine from the Saracens. 
They insisted that the crusader's vow was really a vow 
to promote in every way the cause of God, of right, and 
of justice ; and in noway would this cause be more sure- 
ly furthered than by restoring the disinherited prince to 
the throne of which he had been robbed by an usurper. 
They pleaded that in this instance interest and duty went 
hand in hand. It would be the first business of Alexios 
after his restoration to bring the Eastern church into sub- 
mission to the Roman church and see ; his next task 
would be to aid the crusaders to the best of his power in 
the work which they had most at heart. He would not 
only feed the whole army and give them 400,000 silver 
marks : but he would also join them in person, or send 
10,000 men at his own charge. 

The announcement of this proposal drew from the 

abbot of Vaux Cernay the passionate rejoinder that they 

were in arms only against Saracens, and 

?c"puhe"'° that to Syria only would they go. But 

terms proposed though he was firmly seconded by his 

by Alexios. . *=" ^ •' 

partisans, there was practically no reply to 
the retort that in Syria they could do nothing, and that 
Jerusalem could be won only through Constantinople or 
Egypt. Words and tempers ran high : but the treaty 
with Alexios was accepted by the marquis of Montferrat 
and the count of Flanders, and the destination of the 



I202. The Fifth Crusade. 157 

army was fixed. The numbers of that arfny were slowly 
diminished through the weeks of winter. The terrors of 
the papal interdict hun^ like a cloud over ,, . . 

^ ^ 111 1 Negotiations 

the host, and the barons resolved to send with the pope 
envoys who should assure Innocent that the of the interdict, 
diversion to Zara, which they and he alike 
lamented, was to be laid wholly to the charge of those 
faithless knights who by departing from other ports left 
their comrades without the means of paying the money 
due to the Venetians. Of the new compact made with 
Alexios they prudently said nothing : and Innocent, 
while he agreed to suspend the interdict till the arrival 
of his legate Peter of Capua, insisted that the barons 
must still make atonement for their offence. Against 
the Venetians he took a higher tone. The envoys must 
carry with them a letter excommunicating these ma- 
rauders. The marquis Boniface received the brief, but, 
instead of publishing it, he wrote to Innocent, sending 
the submission of the barons and saying that the Vene- 
tians were about to entreat his forgiveness for the con- 
quest of Zara. No such entreaties came : and Innocent 
issued fresh orders that his brief should be placed in the 
hands of the doge. If this was done, it produced no re- 
sult : and Innocent was startled, if not dismayed, when 
he learnt that the spoilers of Zara were making ready 
to sin on a larger scale. He denounced the whole 
scheme with seemingly vehement indignation. The em- 
peror of Constantinople may have been guilty of blind- 
ing his brother and usurping his throne ; but his empire, 
he insisted, was under the special protection of the Holy 
See. It was no part of their business or their vow to 
avenge the wrongs of the prince Alexios ; it was their 
first and paramount duty to avenge the wrongs done to 
their Redeemer, the sign of whose cross they bore upon 



158 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

their shoulders. Nay, more, the Byzantine emperor 
had, at the special request of the pope, promised to 
furnish provisions for the crusaders : and the promise 
of the Eastern Csesar might be trusted. If it should fail, 
then they might forcibly take what they wanted, at the 
same time paying or promising to pay the value in money. 
Dandolo was in no mood to have his course checked 
by either papal pleadings or papal threats. The day of 
embarkation had arrived, and Simon of 

A. D. 1203. 

Easter. Montfort, impenetrable in his gloomy bigot- 

Vain attempts ry, hastened away to join the king of Hun- 
oppose'the eS g^^y, the faithful servant of the pope. The 
pedition. other chiefs went on board the Venetian 

fleet, with perhaps a shrewd suspicion that their success 
would be followed by a marked change in the tone and 
language of the pope. But whatever might be his desire 
to keep on good terms with the reigning monarch, his long- 
ing to see the Byzantine church brought back to Roman 
subjection was altogether more intense. This submis- 
sion would be the immediate result of the enthronement 
of Alexios, and the crusaders would depart for the Holy 
Land, (the vision of a Latin empire at Byzantium had 
not yet dawned upon their minds,) rich not only in the 
blessing of the pope, but in a wealth of sacred relics 
which, now stored up in the churches of the capital, 
ought to pass into the hands of the faithful children of 
the Roman obedience. 

About the time of the summer solstice, the Venetian 

fleet anchored in the Propontis nine miles to the west of 

the Imperial city. A few days latter the 

A. D. 1203. . , .J 

Arrival of army was at bcutari, where they received a 

Constant?- mcssage from the reigning emperor Alexios 

"°P^^- promising them aid in their passage through 

Asia Minor, on the condition that during their stay on 



I203- ' The Fifth Crusade. 159 

the shores of the Bosporos they should do his subjects 
no harm. The reply was a summons to the usurper to 
descend from his throne, with a promise that on this con- 
dition they would obtain for him the pardon of his ne- 
phew, the rightful sovereign. 

This young prince was paraded by the Venetian fleet 
in front of the walls ; but the proclamation which called 
upon the people to acknowledge him as their sovereign 
was received with contemptuous silence or with showers 

of arrows, and no alternative remained but ^,. , , , 
^- , Flight of the 

that of open war. The struggle presents usurper 
few features of real interest ; as a series of 
military operations it has little value or none. The im- 
perial fleet consisted, it is said, of only twenty ships, and 
these useless, the anchors, cables, and sails having been 
sold by the admiral, a brother of the empress. The army 
exhibited all the pageantry of war, and lacked almost 
every soldierly quality. The port of Constantinople and 
the town of Galata were soon in the possession of the 
invaders, and the siege of the city was begun, so far as 
the efforts of a force which could assail but an insignifi- 
cant extent of wall deserves the name, The first flag 
planted on one of the towers was placed there by the 
men of Dandolo's ship ; and Dandolo himself, setting 
fire to the surrounding houses, kept off the imperial 
troops while his crew fortified themselves in their posi- 
tion. The Latins and the Greeks were now face to face. 
The splendid ranks of the Byzantine army stood, as it 
might seem, ready for battle, when Alexios gave the sig- 
nal for retreat and sealed his own downfall. That night 
he fled from the city. The blind Isaac Angelus, drawn 
from his dungeon, was again clad in the imperial robes, 
and his son Alexios was admitted to share his imperial 
dignity. 



i6o The Crusades. ch. ix. 

The task of the crusaders in Europe seemed to be 
now done. Then* heralds announced to the Egyptian 
The crusa- sultan that they would soon take summary 
compeifed to vengeanco unless he surrendered the Holy 
spend the Land. The Pisans who had aided the 

winter at 

Constant!- usurping Alcxios made up their quarrel 
with Venice. The French barons asked 
the forgiveness of the pope for the attack made upon 
Constantinople, and Innocent replied that it must de- 
pend on the fulfilment of the promises made by Alexios. 
This prince, having paid part of the money which he 
had sworn to give them, bade them remember how dear 
must be to himself the cost of alliance with them, and how 
greatly he must need their help to stem the tide of 
unpopularity. In short, he let them know that in or 
near Constantinople they must find their winter quarters. 
It was absurd to think of encountering the risk of a voy- 
age during the winter : and even if they went, they 
could do nothing against the Turks until spring. He 
would then see that nothing should be left undone 
towards furthering the success of the crusade. 

The northern pilgrims received these proposals with 
murmurs of anger. But the decision lay really with 
Dandolo, and Dandolo declared that at this season of 
the year the ships of the republic should not be exposed 
to useless dangers. The army remained where it was : 
but new troubles came thick and fast. Religious anta- 
gonism ran out into brawls and fights. An accidental 
conflagration preyed for eight days on the 

Efforts of 1 1 r , . r^^ 

Mourzoufleto Streets and houses of the city. The rage 

detach Alexios -^ j t_ ^i i • j i ^i 

from the crusa- excited by thcse losses was increased by the 
^^'^^^ exactions to which the young Alexios was 

driven in order to meet his engagements with the crusa- 
ders, and was lashed into madness when his officers 



1203. The Fifth Cntsade. 161 

stripped the churches of their gold and silver ornaments. 
The indignation of the people found utterance in the 
vehement eloquence of Alexios Ducas, called Mourzoufle 
from his dark and shaggy eyebrows ; and his protests so 
far swayed the youthful emperor as to make him remiss 
in carrying out his compact with his allies. These told 
him plainly that to that compact he must strictly adhere, 
or, failing in this, must prepare himself for war. 

During the night following the day in which he re- 
ceived this warning Alexios sent a squadron of fire-ships 
against the Venetian fleet. The danger was 

, , Deposition 

great ; but the Venetian sailors were as and death of 
prompt as they were brave. The deadly ^^^'''°^- 
ships were turned aside into open water, and a Pisan 
merchant ship was the only vessel set on fire and de- 
stroyed. It was the last exploit of Alexios. Another 
revolution hurled him from the throne, which after one 
or two more emperors had been set up and put down 
passed to Mourzoufle. The new Csesar showed some 
aptitude for war, but he preferred to try the effect of 
negotiations with Dandolo. The old doge retorted that 
with an usurper he could have no dealings, and that, if 
he sought peace, he should replace his master Alexios 
on the throne. Mourzoufle resolved that this demand 
should not be made a second time : and that night Alex- 
ios was slain in prison. 

For the fate of their former ally the crusaders professed 
to feel a profound sympathy ; and their grief prompted 
the resolution of cutting the evil at its root by placing a 
Latin emperor on the seat of the Eastern ^ , . 

Resolution to 

Caesars. 1 he compact was accordingly set up a Latin 
drawn up. The booty to be obtained within ConStant^ 
the city was to be shared equally between the "°p'^- 
French and the Venetians ; and a committee of twelve, 

M 



1 62 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

half French, half Venetian, should elect the new sove- 
reign, who was to have one-fourth part of the city with 
the palaces of Blachernai and Boukoleon, the rest of the 
city being shared by the two allied powers. Venice, 
freed from all feudal obligations to the Greek empire, 
should be equally free from all feudal dependence on 
the Latin sovereign, while the Latin patriarch should 
be chosen from the nation to which the emperor might 
not belong. 

The second siege of Constantinople is as devoid of in»- 
terest as the first. The success of the Greeks on the 
first day was followed by a series of disas- 
Aprii. ters which on the fourth day enabled the 

qiSt of CoS-' Latins to force their way through the gates, 
stantinopie. Mourzouflc shut himsclf up in his palace. 
A third conflagration desolated the city. In the morn- 
ing the conquerors learnt that the usurper had fled with 
many of the inhabitants. The Latin conquest was ac- 
complished. The Byzantine clergy alone urged con- 
tinued resistance ; but when they presented Theodore 
Lascaris to the people as their emperor, their silence 
showed that the appeal was made in vain. Then, see- 
ing that nothing more could be done, the patriarch John 
Kamateros fled from the sight of the awful scenes which 
disgraced the triumph of the Latins. The three West- 
ern bishops had strictly charged the crusaders to respect 
the churches and the persons of the clergy, the monks, 
and the nuns. They were talking to the winds. In the 
frantic excitement of victory all restraint was 
cesses of the flung aside, and the warriors of the cross 
crusaders. abandoned themselves with ferocious greed 

to their insatiable and filthy lewdness. With disgusting 
gestures and in shameless attire an abandoned woman 
screamed out a drunken song from the patriarchal chair 



1204. The Fifth Crusade, 163 

in the church of Sancta Sophia, the magnificent work of 
Justinian. Wretches bhnd with fury drained off draughts 
of wine from the vessels of the akar : the table of obla- 
tion, famed for its exquisite and costly workmanship, 
was shattered : the splendid pulpit with its silver orna- 
ments utterly defaced. Mules and horses were driven 
into the churches to bear away the sacred treasures ; if 
they fell, they were lashed and goaded till their blood 
streamed upon the pavement. While the savages were 
employed on these appropriate tasks, the more devout 
were busy in ransacking the receptacles of holy relics, 
and laying up a goodly store of wonder-working bones 
or teeth to be carried away to the churches of the great 
cities on the Rhine, the Loire, or the Seine. ' How,' 
asks the pope, ' shall the Greek Church return to ec- 
clesiastical unity and to respect for the Apostolic See, 
when they have seen in the Latins only examples of 
wickedness and works of darkness, for which they might 
justly loathe them worse than dogs?' The- question 
might well be asked : and we may be well assured that 
Innocent would not be likely to over-colour the picture 
in favour of the Greeks, and that his informers would not 
care to put before him in their naked hideousness ini- 
quities which it would be a sin to describe. 

The first task of the conquerors was to elect a chief 
and share the spoil. The committee of twelve met in 
the chapel of the palace and invoked the ^, . 

^ '^ , - Election of 

aid of the Holy Spirit. The six French Baldwin, count 
electors were all ecclesiastics, — the abbot emperor of 'the 
of Loces, the bishops of Troyes, Soissons, ^^^^' 
Halberstadt, and Bethlehem, and the archbishop-elect 
of Acre. Their first choice fell on Dandolo. His wis- 
dom,. his energy, his undaunted courage, seemed to point 
him out as the best man fitted to rule the empire in the 



164 The Crusades, ch. ix. 

winning of which he had played the chief part. But the 
old man cared little for the office, and to the Venetians 
the combination of the powers of emperor and doge in 
the same person probably boded ill for the best interests 
of the commercial republic. There remained only two 
who could well be placed in competition for the prize. 
The marquis of Montferrat, the lord of a petty principal- 
ity at the foot of the Alps, could be no object of Vene- 
tian jealousy, while his age and character well qualified 
him for the office. But Baldwin of Flanders, at the age 
of thirty-two, was in the first flush of vigorous manhood ; 
he was come of the race of Charles the Great, and the 
French king was his cousin. He was also the feudal 
sovereign of a wealthy territory and the leader of a 
powerful army raised among his own people. The elec- 
tors came to an unanimous decision, and this decision 
announced to the barons, who were waiting outside, that 
the count of Flanders was the Eastern Caesar. Boniface 
of Montferrat at once did homage to him as his lord ; 
and the old doge was the only man not called upon to 
make this act of submission. Borne on the shields of 
his comrades Baldwin was carried to the church of 
Sancta Sophia and there was invested with the purple 
buskins. Three weeks later he was crowned by the papal 
legate, the new patriarch not having been yet elected. 
This election was to the Venetians a subject of greater 
anxiety than the choice of a temporal sovereign. There 
Election of was no room here for the fear that Venice 
Morosfni as might bccome an insignificant dependency 
Con'tand°^ of a vast empire ; and they set to work with 
nopie. their usual promptitude and coolness. The 

canonical regularity of the election was, as they sup- 
posed, ensured by the appointment of Venetian priests 
to be canons of Sancta Sophia ; and these canons were 



1 204. The Fifth Crusade. 165 

placed under oath to elect none but a Venetian. Their 
choice fell on Thomas Morosini, a member of one of 
their noblest houses and a man highly esteemed by In- 
nocent III. 

The Roman pontiff played his part with consummate 
skill. While the usurping Alexios was on the throne, he 
had striven to secure through his help the ^ , 
submission of the Eastern church. No sooner from Bald- 
had he fled, than Innocent reminded his Venetians to 
nephew Alexios of the promises of obedience t^^pope. 
which he had personally made, and urged the crusaders 
to insist on the immediate fulfilment of this promise. In 
no other way could they justify themselves for diverting 
to other purposes the forces which had been enrolled 
solely for the redemption of the Holy Land. He had 
now to deal with a new order of things. The emperor 
Baldwin had prayed him to ratify the compact made with 
the Venetians, to stir up afresh the zeal of Western 
Europe for the maintenance of the Latin empire in the 
East, to send forth new armies who in the countries now 
brought under Latin sway would assuredly reap an abun- 
dant harvest, and to reinforce the Latin clergy by a mul- 
titude of new recruits. The Venetians had besought his 
forgiveness for attacking Zara, his sanction of the con- 
quest of Constantinople. They could not bring them- 
selves to believe that the people of Zara were really 
under his protection, and hence they had determined to 
bear with the excommunication in patient silence until 
the pontiff should learn the truth. For what they had 
done at Byzantium the young Alexios was chargeable, not 
they. He had tried to send fire-ships among their fleet, 
and it was indispensable for their own safety and that of 
their allies to deprive him of the power of doing further 
mischief. 



1 66 The Crusades. ch. ix. 

The satisfaction which Innocent felt, and avowed that 

he felt, was expressed in carefully guarded terms. He 

was rejoiced to be able to revoke the excom- 

Answers of . "^ _ 

Innocent Hiunication of the Venetians, and so hieh 

III ... 

was his admiration of the valour and wisdom 

of Dandolo that he could not comply with the prayer of 
the venerable doge to be relieved from further obligation 
under his vow. The hero who could bear so lightly the 
burden of ninety winters must not deprive the crusade 
of services which would ensure success to the enterprise 
and a glorious reward for himself. To the delicate praise 
which thus took the form of a command he added the 
assurance that he had taken the Latin empire under his 
special protection, and had prayed the sovereigns and 
prelates of the West to exert themselves to the utmost in 
its behalf. He had felt himself bound to pass a stern 
condemnation on the deeds of horrible violence and 
lewdness committed by the crusaders in the sacking of a 
Christian city ; but he could not withhold the admission 
that the history of the conquest was a memorable com- 
mentary on the parables of the talents and the vineyard. 
The Greeks had done nothing with the good things com- 
mitted to their trust : far from aiding, they had seriously 
hindered, the warriors of the cross and even done their 
best to destroy them. They had kept up a causeless 
schism ; they had turned a deaf ear to all entreaties which 
called upon them to come back to the unity of the Church ; 
and they had now paid the penalty by seeing their in- 
heritance in the hands of better husbandmen who would 
bring forth fruit in due season. But if Innocent was thus 
complaisant with the secular empire, he laid a heavy 
hand on the spiritual power which the Venetians hoped 
to secure as their special portion. The pope had a stern 
censure for the conduct both of the Venetians and the 



1204. The Fifth Crusade. 167 

French in daring to seize on the temporalities of the 
Eastern church and to portion out along with other 
lands and property all that might remain over and above 
the amount deemed sufficient for the maintenance of the 
Latin clergy. Nor could he allow the validity of Moro- 
sini's election, whether by a self-constituted chapter or 
by priests chosen by a purely secular authority. The 
election, in short, was null and void ; but so great was 
his regard for the Venetians, so high his esteem for 
Morosini, that he would himself appoint to the Byzantine 
patriarchate the man whom they had chosen, and invest 
him with singular privileges. These privileges involved 
a reservation of certain appeals to the pope ; and the 
very plenitude of the powers thus bestowed served only 
to show with the greater clearness the paramount sove- 
reignty of the Roman pontiff to whom he owed his dig- 
nity and his jurisdiction. 

The great crusade promoted by Innocent had thus 
produced results very different from those which he had 
looked for. It had not touched the power of the Syrian 
sultans ; it had not struck a blow on the soil of Palestine. 
But on the whole he had no cause to complain. It had 
widely extended the limits of his supremacy, 
and had subdued a spiritual rebellion which the crusades 
had rent asunder the seamless robe of Christ, and \o^q 
But if the pope was a gainer, Venice had Venetians. 
secured to herself advantages, more solid perhaps, cer- 
tainly more enduring. By the conquest of Zara she had 
laid the foundations of her vast commercial empire ; and 
her factories at Pera needed only the defence of her 
fleets, while the Latins in Byzantium had to guard them- 
selves against attacks by land. She had her settlements 
in the richest islands of the Egean, and in every harbour 
was seen the flag of the maritime republic. This growth 



1 68 The Crusades. ch. x. 

of her commerce was, moreover, fostering in her a spirit 
of antagonism to ecclesiastical authority, of which Inno- 
cent seems to have foreseen the issue, and which he 
sought with all his power to crush. The abbot of St. 
Felix in Venice was consecrated, by the command of 
Ziani, the successor of Henry Dandolo, to the archbishop- 
ric of Zara, the sanction of the pope not being first 
asked. The wrath of Innocent blazed forth at once. 
He reviewed in the harshest terms the general policy of 
the Venetians in the conduct of the crusade. It was true 
that they had taken Zara, and even that they had over- 
thrown the Byzantine empire : but what would not an army, 
which had won such victories, have achieved in the Holy 
Land ? Had the crusaders fulfilled their vows, not only 
must Egypt have been subdued, and the cross replaced 
on the dome of Omar, but Syria itself must have been 
swept clear of all Saracen dominion. That this glorious 
result had not been brought about already, was the fault 
of the Venetians and of them alone. He could not 
therefore recognize their archbishop, and he insisted on 
their submission under pain of the censures which were 
ready to fall upon them. There is no evidence to show 
that the Venetians took the reproof to heart, or that they 
vouchsafed any reply. 



CHAPTER X. 



THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

We have already (p. 55) marked the broad contrast 
between the character of the Greeks and that of the 
Contrast be- Latin and Teutonic nations of Western 
Greeks' and Europc ; between the centralized and legal 
the Latins. government of the one and the feudalism of 
the other; between the restlessness and ambition which 



The Latin Empire of Constantinople, 169 

in the West ran out into constant private war, and the 
habit of almost unreflecting obedience which had left the 
subjects of the Eastern Caesars unable to cope with 
rougher and ruder spirits except with the weapons supplied 
by cunning, fraud, and treachery. The crusaders had 
come to a people which to a large extent might be de- 
scribed as in a state of decrepitude, but to a land never- 
theless which was not less Christian than Italy or France, 
nay, which boasted churches of an antiquity more vene- 
rable than those of Milan, Ravenna, and Rome itself, — • 
to a land ruled by a system of law which has affected 
the legislation of every nation in Europe, — ^to a land 
where Antony and Basil had reared the fabric of mona- 
chism long before the days of the Nursian Benedict 
or the Scottish Columba, — ^to a land where the ritual of 
the Church had taken root while Christianity was in its 
cradle, and had moulded the life, the thoughts, the very 
being of all its members. 

This time-honoured civilization the Western champions 
of the cross now fancied that they could crush or sweep 
away. Not one of them cared to think that Attempt to 
he was dealing with Christians or with the "za^tfon o1"the' " 
subjects of the ancient empire of Octavius or ^^^ empire. 
of Constantine. For them the land, not less than Syria 
and Egypt, was a part of heathendom ; the people sava- 
ges to be brought under a yoke as heavy as that of the 
Western serfs ; their patriarchs, their bishops, their 
priests, and their monks were ministers of a false faith 
beyond the pale of charity or mercy. Wiser conquerors 
might have mingled with the people, and through inter- 
marriage might have infused new vigour into the feeble 
mass. By Baldwin and his allies a rigid line was drawn 
separating the present from the past. All dignities, 
offices, and lands were forfeited ; all were shared exclu- 



lyo The Crusades. ch. x. 

sively among the conquerors. If they were still under an 
emperor, this emperor was not the autocrat who repre- 
sented the majesty of Rome, but a mere feudal chief 
whose barons, although owing him homage, regarded 
themselves as practically his peers. In short, Baldwin 
and his comrades held that they might do at Constanti- 
nople what Godfrey and his allies had done in Palestine. 
The code of Justinian gave place to the Assize of Jeru- 
salem (p. 78), and not a single Greek was permitted to 
take part in the administration of this law. 

As it was with the secular order of things, so was it 
with the spiritual. The pope annulled without scruple 
Conduct of the thc election of Morosini by self-chosen or 
the Greek^ ^ state-appoiuted canons : but he did so only 
clergy. because his own authority was imperilled, not 

at all because they were invading the jurisdiction of a 
patriarch whose throne was as ancient as that of Inno- 
cent himself. Just as though they had been mere priests 
of Baal or Mahomedan Imams, the Greek clergy were 
all driven from their churches (p. 163), and the people 
compelled to abandon their venerable liturgy for that of 
the Church of Rome. The emperor besought the pope 
to send out bands of priests as though for the conversion 
of a heathen country, and to furnish Dominican and 
Cistercian monks for the purposes of reforming the ste- 
reotyped monachism of the East. Innocent was indeed 
full of exultation. His letters everywhere called on the 
faithful to succour the devoted missionaries who were 
preaching the Gospel in the churches of Constantinople 
and bringing home to the people the enormity of the 
heresy which denied the procession of the Holy Spirit 
from the Son as well as from the Father. ' Samaria,' he 
said, * had now returned to Jerusalem ; God had trans- 
ferred the empire of the Greeks from the proud to the 



The Latin Empire of Cofistantinople. 171 

lowly, from the superstitious to the religious, from the 
schismatics to the Catholics, from the disobedient to the 
devoted servants of God.' He was impressed with the 
needfulness of sending young men from the schools of 
Paris to strengthen themselves by the learning of the 
East : Philip Augustus summoned young Greeks to Paris 
to receive instruction in the creed and ritual of the West. 
Both were playing with edged tools. The pope and the 
king were both encouraging that intercourse of thought 
which was in the end to scatter to the winds the theory 
of the divine right of temporal despots and the infalli- 
bility of spiritual rulers. 

The order of things so set up lasted a little longer than 
the Latin principality of Edessa (p. 59). It was essenti- 
ally the piece of new cloth patched into the „ 

J r r ^ Opposition 

old garment, the new wine poured into old of the French 

■1111 11 1 T • clergy to the 

leathern bottles only to burst them. In' its new patri- 
relation to the conquered race it had no ^^^ ' 
more stability than the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem (p. 
Ill); and in itself gave play to all the jealousies and 
quarrels which disgraced the feudal states of Western 
Europe. The strife began before the landing of Moro- 
sini. While yet at Rome, he had been warned by the 
pope to have nothing to do with the schemes of Venetian 
statesmen, and to show no preference in his new home 
for men of Venetian birth. In Venice he was compelled 
to abjure this promise, to swear that Venetians alone 
should be canons of Sancta Sophia, and that, so far as 
his power might extend, he would strive to secure to a 
Venetian the succession to his patriarchate. Nothing 
more would be needed beyond the rumours of these in- 
trigues to rouse the suspicions of the French clergy ; and 
accordingly, when Morosini approached the shore, not 
one obeyed his summons. To the Greeks the sleek and 



172 The Crusades. CH. x. 

beardless prelate and his coarse-looking and beardless 
priests were alike repulsive. Morosini was left almost 
alone. He threatened with excommunication the clergy 
who would not admit his authority ; his menaces were 
treated with indifference or contempt. 

The conquerors had indeed won for themselves a do- 
main almost appalling in its extent ; and the sharing of 
^ . . , the prize was soon followed by the quarrel- 

Partition of . ^ J ^ 

the empire ling of robbers over their booty. Not three 
crusading months after the fall of Constantinople the 

chiefs. emperor led his forces against his vassal Bon- 

iface of Montferrat, now the lord of Thessalonica; and 
the quarrel which was for the time made up was a signi- 
ficant token of the future history of his empire. The time 
was come for carrying out the compact made before the 
conquest. The aged Dandolo became despot of Roma- 
nia, and in his new sovereignty he died, leaving to his 
countrymen the task of strengthening and extending 
their commercial empire by means of a chain of facto- 
ries along the mainland and in the islands of the Adria- 
tic and the Archipelago. The task was too costly even 
for the resources of Venice : and the commercial repub- 
lic was constrained to govern her possessions by that 
feudal system to which her constitution was utterly oppo- 
sed. For Boniface, the chivalrous rival of Baldwm, the 
lordship of Crete had less attractions than the kingdom 
of the Macedonian Thessalonica : but his wanderings 
did not end here. Thebes, Athens, Argos, received his 
followers within their gates ; and the resistance of Co- 
rinth and Napoli was speedily overpowered. The count 
of Blois received the dukedom of Nicsea (Nikaia, Nice), 
the count of St. Pol the lordship of Demetria, a city about 
twenty miles to the south of Adrianople, while Geoffrey 
of Villehardouin, now marshal of Romania as well as of 



I204. The Latin Empire of Constantinople. 173 

Champagne, found a splendid home on the banks of the 
Hebros. 

But the power of the old Byzantine Caesars was rather 
divided than crushed by the Latin crusaders. The 
wretched Mourzoufle, caught by the Latins, 
was hurled from the Theodosian column ; Rise' of new 
but Theodore Lascaris, the son-in-law of the N^ce'^^Trebi- 
Alexios who dethroned Isaac Angelus, es- ^°"'^' ^"^ ^"' 
tablished himself at Nicaea first as despot 
then as emperor, and in no long time had extended his 
power from the Bosporos to the banks of the Meander. 
Other parts of the empire were likewise in revolt against 
the new Caesars. The governors of Trebizond, without 
changing their titles at first, became sovereigns of their 
province, and laid the foundations of their later empire. 
A power not less formidable sprung up in Epirus (Epeiros) 
and had its centre within the walls of that city of Du- 
razzo which is especially associated with the history of 
Bohemond. The conquerors were now to feel the effects 
of feudal subordination, which was only another name 
for real anarchy. The terror which they had inspired 
when their combined forces assailed the walls of Con- 
stantinople was rapidly lessened when their dispersal 
betrayed their scanty powers of cohesion, and when en- 
counters in the field proved to be not always irresistible. 

The storm burst on the Latins from a 

lVl3.SS9.CrC 01 tll6 

quarter in which they had not looked for it. Latins in 
The chief of the Bulgarians, John or Calo- ordeTof die 
John, had at first greeted Baldwin with the ^alfYohn 
freedom of an equal as well as the hearti- 
ness of a friend ; but the retort that in the count of 
Flanders he must recognize his emperor roused a resent- 
ment which led him to make common cause with the 
insurgent Greeks. Waiting until Baldwin's brother 



174 ^'^^^ Crusades. ch. x. 

Henry had with a large force crossed the Hellespont, 
he gave the signal for slaughter, and the Latins were 
forthwith cut down in the towns and villages of Thrace. 
Baldwin at once sent a messenger to recall his brother ; 
but before he could return, he set out with 140 knights 
and their retinues, followed by the aged Dandolo. The 
force was perilously small ; but good order and disci- 
pline might have more than compensated this disad- 
vantage. All desultory action was forbidden ; the order 
was disregarded by the count of Blois who was himself 
surprised and slain, while the emperor 
Aprii.Captivity Baldwin became a prisoner. The army was 
BaldwirT^'^'^^'^ saved by the wisdom, fortitude, and hero- 
ism of Villehardouin, whose masterly retreat 
is perhaps the only piece of true generalship in the 
whole military history of the crusades. But the empire 
was already little more than the shadow of its former 
self. A few fortresses on the shore of the Propontis now 
formed with the capital the imperial domain of the 
Latins. Calo-John was in the full tide of success. The 
pope, for whom he had but a little while ago professed a 
deep devotion, entreated him to have mercy on his 
enemies and to release the emperor. This last request 
was, he said, beyond mortal power to grant, 
wim ° ^ ' Baldwin had already died in prison. How, 
no one ever knew. Stories grew up which 
told of horrible barbarities practised on the defenceless 
captive ; and the common belief that great men cannot 
die brought forward twenty years later in Flanders a man 
who gave himself out as the true sovereign of the country, 
and won from thousands a faith not to be shaken by the 
discovery of his imposture and the ignominious death 
which followed it. 

The career of Alexander the Great and of Baldwin 



1207. The Latin Empire of Constantinople. 175 

was cut short at the same early age. The reign of Bald- 
win's younger brother Henry was extended 
over ten years, and closed when he was (brother of 
forty-four years old. It began in darkness Pi^^^^or of 
and gloom, it was followed by a time of Constanti- 

. nople. 

overwhelming disasters : but in itself it is 
the only period in the history of the Latin empire on 
which our thoughts may rest with anything approaching 
to satisfaction. Twelve months had passed while he 
acted as regent for his brother before he could be brought 
to believe that Baldwin no longer lived, and to assume 
the imperial title. Dandolo had already ended his long 
life at Constantinople. Boniface of Mont- 

A. D. 1205. 

ferrat was soon to follow him, after his dis- 
putes with the emperor on points of homage had been 
settled by the marriage of Henry to his 

7^ A. D. 1207. 

daughter Agnes. Boniface died m a war 

with Calo-John ; and with him his friend Geoffrey of 

Villehardouin disappears from history. 

But the tide was now to turn against the Bulgarian 
chief. The Greeks, who had looked to Calo-John as to 
one who would restore to them their freedom 
and their laws, found that they #ere dealing tion of Calo- 
with a savage whose mind ran on massacre ^° "" 
and on those wholesale deportations of conquered tribes 
which have in all ages delighted the hearts of Eastern 
despots. The cruelties of the tyrant taught them that in 
the Latin emperor they might perhaps find a friend. 
At their prayer for help Henry took the field with a dan- 
gerously scanty force ; and the retreat of Calo-John was 
probably caused less through fear of the Latin army 
than by the desertion of his Comans. Not long after- 
wards the Bulgarian chief was killed in his tent, while 
besieging Thessalonica. With his successor Vorylas 



176 The Crusades, ch. x. 

Henry made an honourable peace ; a treaty with the 
Greek sovereigns of Nice and Epirus (Epeiros) left to 
him undisturbed possession of an ample territory ; and 
the rest of his life was spent in conscientious efforts for 
its just and orderly government. Clearly seeing the 
Wise govern- ^^^^^ ^^^1 ^^ ^^^^ exclusive System which 

ment of the ^g^g gQ ^ear to the hearts of crusaders gene- 
emperor ^ 
Henry. rally, Henry resolved to govern Greeks 

through Greeks. The great offices of the state were 
thrown open to them, in great part filled by them. To 
the tyranny which repressed the use of the Eastern 
liturgy and thrust on the people a theological dogma he 
opposed a passive resistance : to the theory of papal su- 
premacy he gave a significant answer by having his 
throne placed on the right hand of the patriarch's chair 
in the church of Sancta Sophia. His presumption was 
rebuked by Innocent III.; but Henry was none the more 
deterred from prohibiting the alienation of fiefs which 
was adding only to the wealth and power of the clergy. 
Henry died at Thessalonica ; and with him the male 
line of the counts of Flanders came to an end. But the 

daughter of Henry's sister Yolande was 
Death of married to^ndrew, king of Hungary; and 

^"^' to the Latins it seemed that the choice of a 

powerful sovereign as their emperor might be the salva- 
tion of their dynasty. The prize had no attractions for 
Andrew : and the offer of the crown was in a fatal hour 

accepted by Peter of Courtenay, count of 
Courtenay Auxerre, the husband of Yolande herself, 
Constant?- ^^o had won his spurs in a crusade, not 

"°P^^- against Turks and Saracens, but against the 

Albigensian heretics of Provence. To raise a decent force 
which might guard him on the march to his capital 
Peter was compelled to sell or mortgage the best part of 



1207-19- The Latin Empire of Constantinople. 177 

his territories ; and when he reached Rome, the pope, 
Honorius III., careful to avoid anything which might 
seem to recognize his authority over the old imperial 
city, crowned him in a church without the walls. The 
means of transport across the sea he had been obliged 
to seek from the Venetians. They were granted, but 
under conditions similar to those which had been im- 
posed on Baldwin and his allies. He must recover 
Durazzo for the republic, as for her they had conquered 
Zara. His success was not greater than 

. A. D. I218. 

that of Bohemond, and his miserable march Captivity 
from Durazzo led him into trackless moun- Peter of 
tains, amongst which he fell into the hands of Courtenay. 
his enemies. With him the papal legate became a captive. 

At once the pope threatened to place the Epirot sove- 
reign under his ban ; but it soon became evident that his 
anxiety was for the legate, not for the emperor. The 
former was released ; the latter was probably murdered 
in prison ; and the successor of Henry died without see- 
ing the city of which he was the Caesar. 

While Peter of Courtenay pined in his dungeon, his 
wife Yolande, in the midst of her grief, anxiety, and appre- 
hension, gave birth to Baldwin, the luckless child with 
whom the Latin dynasty was to reach its close. Death 
soon brought relief from her sorrows ; and the barons had 
again before them the task of choosing an emperor. 
Namur, the inheritance of Yolande, had passed to her 
eldest son Philip, who was too prudent to change the sub- 
stance of his principality for the shadow of ^ , 

^ "^ Robert, empe- 

an empire. The crown was offered to her rorofConstan- 
second son Robert, who set out on his jour- 
ney, by way of Germany and the Danube, through the 
territories of his brother-in-law, the king of 

° . A. D. 1219. 

Hungary. He was crowned by the patri- 

N 



178 The Crusades. CH. x. 

arch in Justinian's church ; but the pageant preceded an 
endless hne of disasters. Demetrius, the son and suc- 
cessor of the marquis Boniface, was expelled from his 
kingdom of Thessalonica : and the remains of Asiatic 
territory still in the hands of the Latins were 

A. D. 1224. 

seized by the Nicaean emperot*, John Vataces, 
the son-in-law of Theodore Lascaris. Still more omi- 
nous was the fact that these conquests were achieved by 
the aid of French mercenaries. The house was indeed 
divided against itself; and the champions of the cross 
had learnt the art of turning their arms to profit in the 
service of the highest bidder or the most successful 
general. To disaster in the field was added vice, with its 
issue crime, in the palace: and Robert, in an agony of 
grief and rage at the mutilation of a woman for whom he 
had wished to thrust aside his wife, the daughter of 
Vataces, sought comfort and redress at the feet of the 
Roman pontiff. He was told to go back to his capital 
and there do his duty. The weight of his 
humiliation was a burden beyond his 
strength. Death relieved him from the duty of obedi- 
ence to the papal order. 

Baldwin, the youngest son of Yolande, was a child only 
seven years old when Robert died ; and the barons of 
John of Bri- the Latin empire felt that the imperial power, 
of Consta?tl-°'' shadowy though it had become, could not 
nople. yet be entrusted to his hands. They re- 

solved to offer it in the mean season to John of Brienne, 
titular king of Jerusalem, by right of his wife Mary, 
daughter of Isabella (p. 144) and Conrad of Montferrat, 
and grand-daughter of king Almeric. This veteran 
warrior, now more than eighty years of age, whom in his 
earlier years we shall meet in the crusade of Frederick 
IL, was induced to accept the title of emperor on condi- 



1 228-61. The Latm Empire of Constantinople. 179 

tion that Baldwin should marry his second daughter and 
succeed him on the throne. But his energy was im- 
paired, whether by age or by desire for rest. He did not 
reach Constantinople till 1231, two years after his elec- 
tion : and the Greek traditions are silent a. d. 1235. 
about the exploits which he is said by the standnopie"by 
Latins to have performed during a siege of Vataces. 
the city by the forces of Vataces and the Bulgarian chief 
Azan. On his death began the ignominious reign of the 
second Baldwin, a reign of twenty-five years, most of 
which were spent in foreign lands for the a. d. 1237-1261. 
purpose of exciting pity for his sorrows and Baldwin 11., 

>: r o sr J emperor oi 

raising alms to relieve his needs. His sue- Constantino- 
cess was not equal to his importunities. If 
at the council of Lyons which excommunicated Frederick 
n. he was placed on the right hand of the pope, at 
Dover he was asked how he could presume without 
leave to enter an independent territory. In England he 
received 700 marks : at Rome the pontiff Efforts to 
loaded him with indulgences and proclaimed ^^^^^ money. 
a crusade in his favour. The sainted Louis of France 
was moved to tears of sympathy by the story of his 
wrongs : but his arms were directed to Egypt, not to Con- 
stantinople. Still, by alienating his marquisate of Namur 
and his lordship of Courtenay, he contrived to return to 
the East with an army of 30,000 men. But the next scene 
of his history exhibits him as the ally of the sultan of 
Iconium, on whom he bestowed his niece, and of the 
Comans, in whose pagan rites he did not hesitate to take 
part. His needs became more pressing, and he bethought 
him of the sacred relics which still remained ^ , , ,. 

Sale of relics. 

m the churches of Constantinople. Of these 

the most precious was the crown of thorns which had 

circled the brow of the Redeemer, and for which he re- 



i8o The Crusades. CH. x. 

ceived from Louis IX. 10,000 marks of silver. At smaller 
prices he disposed of the baby linen used by the Virgin 
Mary in the cave of Bethlehem, the lance and sponge used 
in the Passion on Calvary, and the rod of Moses, all of 
which, with some others, were transferred to the exqui- 
site chapel in Paris which still attests the munificence 
and perfect taste of the sainted king of France. 

Meanwhile the power of Vataces was being extended 

on every side : and only his submission to the Roman 

doctrine respecting the procession of the 

A. D. 1255. 11 

Death of Va- Holy Spirit was needed to secure a papal 
declaration in his favour. That submission 
was not made ; and his death brought a respite to the 
Latin emperor. But when Baldwin sent his envoys to 
see what territorial concessions could be obtained from 
Michael Paleologos, the colleague and guardian of John, 
the grandson of Vataces, they were curtly 
The envoys of told that he would yield them not a foot of 
peiied'b/^' land. By the payment of an annual tri- 
Michael Pale- -[^y^g amounting: to the whole sum received 

ologos. '^ 

from the customs and excise of Constanti- 
nople the Latin Caesar might secure peace : if he refused 
these terms, he must prepare for war. The great quarrel 
was soon decided. Michael had bestowed the title of 
Caesar on his general Alexios Strategopoidos ; and by 
his orders this general went to keep close watch on the 
capital, under the pledge that he would run no danger- 
ous risks. He failed to keep his promise, and when with 
a scanty band of followers he clambered over the un- 
guarded walls, he began to tremble at his own rashness. 
But his volunteers (for so they were termed) would listen 
to no arg-uments for retreat. The die was cast, and the 
result was victory. The Greeks rose on all hands at the 
cry which called them to the rescue of their ancient em- 



i26i. The Latin Empire of Constantinople. i8i 

pire ; the Genoese were not unwilling to take revenge 
upon their Venetian enemies ; and the Latin emperor 
with his chief vassals, embarking on board 
the Venetian fleet, sailed first to Euboia and Recovery of ^ 
thence to Italy. The capital of the Eastern g'J^'e^'gSl! 
empire was freed from the presence and the 
yoke of its Western conquerors ; but for thirteen years 
longer Baldwin bore about with him an empty title which 
won for him the commiseration or the contempt of thou- 
sands who could not be brought to stir hand or foot in 
his service. His pretensions were maintained by his son 
Philip, and through his grand-daughter Catharine passed 
to her husband Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the 
Fair of France. 

Next after, perhaps even before, the deliverance of the 
Holy Land and the restoration of the Latin kingdom of 
Jerusalem, the wish dearest to the heart of „ 

•^ Permanent 

Innocent III. was the recovery of the Greek alienation of 
communion to the unity of the Church. He the West, 
was also statesman enough to see that his 
wishes would best be realized by a closer union between 
the subjects of the Eastern and the Western empires. 
The death-blow to these hopes and yearnings was dealt by 
his own crusade. In itself, and in the events which fol- 
lowed it, not a single thing was lacking which could ex- 
aggerate suspicion into vehement jealousy, and intensify 
dislike into burning hatred. There was the merciless in- 
tolerance which regarded Christian patriarchs with their 
clergy and their laity as heathens because they ques- 
tioned the supremacy of the pope and refused to add one 
word to one proposition in the Nicene creed. There was 
the cruelty which intruded strangers into the places of 
those who had taught and ministered to the people, and 
which suppressed a ritual hallowed by the associations 



1 82 The Crusades. ch. xi. 

of ages. There was the gross injustice which thrust 
Greeks out of every high, or responsible, or lucrative of- 
fice, and which imposed on them a system of law utterly 
alien to their wishes, thoughts, and habits. There was 
the savage fury which had made the streets of the capi- 
tal run with blood, and defiled its sanctuaries with blas- 
phemy and massacre. Last, but perhaps not least, was 
the brutality which had shattered or committed to the 
flames all that was beautiful in art, costly in materials, 
exquisite in workmanship, precious from its rarity or the 
absolute impossibility of restoring it. The tombs of the 
emperors were burst open and rifled : the master-pieces 
of ancient sculptors were thrown down and shattered. 
In the Venetians alone the impulse to destroy was weaker 
than the temptation to theft, and the horses of Lysippos, 
borne across the sea to Venice, still stand above the 
gorgeous portals of the basilica of St. Mark. The Greeks 
were left with a bitter hatred of the laws, the customs, 
the government of Latin Christendom ; and an impassable 
gulf remained yawning between the churches of the East 
and the West, which no efforts have thus far been able 
to close or to bridge over. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE SIXTH CRUSADE. 

The infatuation by which in every instance the champions 
of the cross had nullified or thrown away the advantages 
„, . -^ gained by their victories was to be shown 

of the sixth not Icss persistcntLy m the sixth crusade. 
But the short-sighted obstinacy of the mass 
was to be brought out in more prominent relief by its 
contrast with the moderation and sagacity of the great 



1 204. The Sixth Crusade. 183 

sovereign whose name is especially associated with this 
enterprise. In the career of this remarkable man we 
have a picture in which we see running together or side 
by side the lines which belong to the old order of things 
with others which seem to belong exclusively to the 
modern civilization of Europe. The struggle between 
Frederick II. and Gregory II. anticipated in more than 
one of its features the struggle between Leo X. and Luther. 
The famine which Dandolo urged on the leaders of 
the fifth crusade (p. 153) as a reason for delaying their 
voyage to Palestine till the spring which fol- _ 

•' ° ir' & Depression of 

lowed the conquest of Zara, pressed less the Latins in 
heavily on the Latin Christians in the Holy 
Land than the destruction wrought l?y an earthquake 
which laid many cities in ruins and which was regarded 
as a presage of the last judgment. In spite of this belief 
much money and labour was spent in repairing the 
shattered walls of Acre ; and amongst the captives im- 
pressed for the work was, it is said, the Persian poet 
Saadi. 

Both sides in fact were greatly weakened and de- 
pressed : and the tidings that Constantinople was in the 
hands of Boniface, Dandolo, and Baldwin 
carried with them for Saphadin a conclusive Tmce^between 
reason for concluding a peace of six years fhJ^christians^ 
with the Christians. But before the six 
years had come to an end the death of Almeric and hig 
wife had left to Mary, the daughter of Isa- 

•' ^. A. D. 1206. 

bella and Conrad of Tyre, the titular sover- 
eignty of Jerusalem. Unable to find on the spot a man 
of sufficient energy and ability to share with her the 
shadowy dignity, the barons invoked the aid of the 
French king, Philip Augustus, to find her a husband. Hig 
choice fell on John of Brienne, who promised to lead a 



1 84 The Crusades. CH. xi. 

powerful army to Palestine within two years. The pros- 
pect of this formidable increase to the strength of his 
enemies led Saphadin to propose a renewal of the peace, 
and to give as guarantees of his good faith any ten 
castles which they might choose to name. As we might 
expect, the approval of the Teutonic knights and the 
Hospitallers called forth the angry protests of the Temp- 
lars and the clergy : and the decision was given for war. 
Three hundred knights only accompanied John of 
Brienne when he set out for Palestine. In England the 
wretched John was defying the pope while the kingdom 
for his sake lay under the papal interdict ; the French 
king was more anxious to turn that interdict to his own 
advantage than to face once more the perils of a distant 
enterprise ; and for the time even Innocent III. felt that 
the chastisement of Christian heretics was a 

A. B. 12IO. 

johnofBri- more pressmg duty than the deliverance of 
kinl'of Jem- the Holy Sepulchre. Hence the marriage 
salem. ^f John of Brienne to Mary, and their coro- 

nation as king and queen of Jerusalem, were soon fol- 
lowed by the sterner business of war. In his encounters 
with Saphadin his exploits may have equalled those of 
Tancred ; but he was compelled to write and tell the 
pope that the Latin kingdom was attenuated to the 
shadow of a shade. 

His entreaties roused in the pope the old crusading 
spirit. Innocent revoked the indulgences which had 
miade the crusade against the Albigenses as 
cJnt in. in "°' attractive as the crusade against the Sara- 
new'crusade ^^^^ ' ^^^ "^ ^^^ cncyclical letter he de- 
clared that the Moslem power was tottering 
and ready to vanish away. It had lasted 666 years, the 
mystic number which showed it to be the Beast of the 
Apocalypse. A little while ago he had written to the sul- 



I2i6. The Sixth Crusade. 185 

tan of Aleppo to thank him for his moderation to the 
Christians and his respect for their rehgion. He now de- 
manded of Saphadin the peaceable and immediate sur- 
render of all Palestine, as a country from which he was 
deriving far more of annoyance than of profit. 

The crusade which Innocent now wished to set in mo- 
tion was preached in France by Robert of 
Courcon, an Englishman whom he had Robert of 

' o Lourcon. 

made his legate. This pupil of Fulk of 
Neuilly had inherited all his earnestness with some por- 
tion of his eloquence ; nor, if the numbers whom he 
enrolled as pilgrims be taken as a test, was his success 
much less splendid. But in truth the barons and knights 
who engaged in these expeditions were getting tired of 
the zeal which invited the maimed, the halt, the blind, 
and the leper to take the kingdom of heaven by vio- 
lence ; and the same charge which had been heard in 
the days of Fulk was now urged with greater force 
against his disciple. Robert was convicted of diverting 
to other purposes money given solely for the recovery 
of the Holy Land ; but he had a firm friend in Innocent 
who, in 1218, appointed him the colleague of Pelagius, 
bishop of Albano, in his legatine commission. 

A few months sufficed after the council of Clermont 
to get together and send forth the armies of the first cru- 
sade : for these latter enterprises the time of preparation 
was extending to years. In his sermons ^ ^ ^g^^ 
preached before the fourth council of La- J°^j[^^i ^f 
teran Innocent declared his intention of Lateran. 
accompanying the champions of the cross to the scene 
of their exploits ; and the troubadours in their songs ex- 
tolled him as their firm and courageous guide. But 
another year had passed before the king of 
a people who had done what they could to 



1 86 The Crusades. ch. xi. 

bar the way of the first crusaders was prepared to set 
, , forth on his eastward journey. The ships 

Crusade of . i 

Andrew, king of Venice conveyed Andrew, king of Hun- 
ungary. gary, first to Cyprus, and thence to Pales- 
tine, where an unsu(?cessful attack on a tower or castle 
on Mount Thabor seems to have disgusted him with the 
undertaking. He determined to return to 

A. D. 1217. ° 

Hungary, and he reached home with 
scant glory, but rich in relics gathered in Armenia and 
Greece. 

In the following year another force, which had been 
brought together at Cologne and on its way had done 
some work in Portugal by taking Alcazar from the 
Moors, joined the Templars and Teutonic knights who 
had fortified a post on mount Carmel. These warriors 
now inclined to the policy of Almeric I. which had aimed 
at attacking and recovering Palestine through 

A. D. 1218. ^ , , . , 

Siege of Egypt. The siege of Damietta was begun ; 

the cagjtle was soon taken ; and the Chris- 
tians were still further aided by the disorders which in 

Esrvpt followed the death of Saphadin, and 

Death of &J'r , ^ ^ . 

Saphadin, which drove his son, the Egyptian sultan 

Kameel, to take refuge in Arabia. In the crusaders' 
camp success, as usual, produced arrogance and sloth. 
Their strength was increased by the arrival of new bands 
from France under the counts of Nevers and la Marche, 
from England under William Longsword, earl of Salis- 
bury, and from Italy under the bishop of Albano and 
Robert of Courcon. The latter landed only to be cut 
off by sickness ; and while the other chiefs lay idle, 
Kameel was brought back to his throne by his brother 
the Syrian sultan Coradin. At length the siege was 
resumed with some vigour and good fortune : and Cora- 
din, knowing the consequences which the fall of Dami- 



1202. The Sixth Crusade. 187 

etta would bring with it, dismantled the walls of Jeru- 
salem and then offered peace to the _ . 

^ Terms of 

besiegfers, pledging himself to rebuild the peace offered 
walls which he had just thrown down, and ^ 
to surrender not only the piece of the true cross but the 
whole of Palestine, with the exceptions of the castles of 
Karac and Montreal for the purpose of protecting the 
pilgrims for Mecca. 

All that the crusaders could even hope to _ ^ , . . 

^ Mad rejection 

accomplish was thus within their grasp, of the terms by 
But the eagerness of king John of Brienne, 
with the Teutonic knights and the French, to seize the 
prize was for the Templars and Hospital- ._ 

^ x- JT J219. Nov. 5. 

lers, with the Italians and the papal legate, Fall of 
a sufficient reason for rejecting the proffers 
of the sultan with indignant contempt. Folly carried 
the day. Damietta was taken, and the Christians 
hurried in to plunder and to slay. The pillage was 
abundant enough ; but in the work of slaughter pesti- 
lence had been beforehand with them. Three thousand 
only remained, it is said, of the 70,000 who were shut up 
in the city at the beginning of the siege, and to these 
plague-stricken wretches life was promised on condition 
that they should clear the streets and houses of the dead 
bodies of their kinsfolk. 

The crusades had everything once more in their 
hands ; but the winter was allowed to pass by without 
further action. When spring came round 

'^ ° A. D 1220. 

the legate, in opposition to the remonstrance March of the 

. , - . ... . Christians 

of John 01 Brienne, msisted on attemptmg for Cairo. 
the conquest of Egypt. On their march to Cairo they 
received from the Sultan Kameel the same ^, 

The old 

offers which they had rejected during the terms again 
siege of Damietta ; and they rejected them ^^^^ 



1 88 The Crusades. CH. xi. 

again. But the Nile was fast rising. The Egyptians 

opened the sluices; the camp of the crusaders was 

inundated ; their tents and baggage swept 

Ruin of the r i i 

crusaders. away. It was now the turn of the legate to 

sue for peace, and he offered to surrender Damietta. In 
the Saracen camp it was no easy task for the Sultan 
Kameel to repress the stern indignation with which many 
of the chiefs demanded the utter destruction of the enemy. 
He urged the vast importance of doing nothing which 
should excite fresh crusades in Europe, while Syria was 
menaced and ravaged by Tartar invasions, and of re- 
covering Damietta without a blow from a garrison strong 
enough to sustain a siege as long as that which had come 
to an end a few months ago. « 

The triumph of the Egyptian sultan seemed to be 

complete ; but he had now to encounter an 
II., grand- enemy of a very different temper. At the 
baJossa^^"" age of eighteen Frederick, the son of the in- 
famous Henry VI. and grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, 
had been summoned by the pope to assume the imperial 

crown which Otho of Brunswick, the son of 

Henry the Lion, was pronounced to have 
forfeited by his misdeeds. It was the old story. The 
strife between pope and anti-pope was but a reflection of 
the almost fiercer strife of rival emperors ; and in this 

struggle the pope naturally inclined to that 
and^the^em- sidc from which the church was likely to 
perors. ^^^^ ^^ most advantage. Otho, the nephew 

of Richard Coeur de Lion, came of a house which had 
been generally loyal and faithful to the Roman pontiffs ; 
his rival belonged to the Swabian house of Hohenstaufen, 
at whose hands the popes had experienced more of 
enmity than of friendship. The remembrance of the 
days of Frederick Barbarossa was vivid in the mind of 



1200-21. The Sixth Crusade. 189 

Innocent III., to whom the two emperors 

^ A. D. 1200 . 

appealed after their coronation. The dehb- 
eration was grave and long ; but the issue was not doubt- 
ful. Otho's rival Philip was ' an obstinate persecutor of 
the Church,' and he was even then scheming to deprive 
the pontiff of his kingdom of Sicily. He must be put 
down before he could reach his full strength ; and there- 
fore the pope declared himself for Otho, himself devoted 
to the Church, by his mother's side from the royal house 
of England, by his father from the duke of Saxony, all 
loyal sons of the Church. Him, therefore, we proclaim 
king ; him wx summon to take on himself the imperial 
crown.' Innocent, like the frogs in the fable, was only 
exchanging king Log for king Stork. The 
reign of Otho was a period of desperate Brunswick, 
strife and anarchy in Germany, of despe- 
rate struggles on his part to throw off the papal yoke. 
The pope turned his eye on the youthful Frederick, then 
basking in the sunshine of his Sicilian paradise and giv- 
ing promise of the brilliant qualities of his nature which 
were afterwards to be sullied by darker lines of angry 
passion. In 12 12 Frederick was chosen emperor at Frank- 
fort. In 1 2 14 his victory at Bouvines shat- 
tered the power of Otho. The gratitude of Battle of 
Frederick for the favour of the pope had 
been shown by taking the crusader's vow and pledging 
himself to lead an army for the recovery of the Holy 
Land. While his rival Otho lived, it was impossible for 
him to fulfil his promise. Two years before his death 
Innocent III. had passed away from the scene of proud 
dominion and unceasing toil, and the more 

. A. D. I216. 

moderate and kmdly Honorms III. sat in Honorius 
his seat. In courteous language which ' ^°^^' 
might pass for that of friendship, the pope besought him 



I go The Crusades. CH. xi. 

to march to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre ; but the 
dark shadows were already stealing across the clear sky. 
Without asking the sanction of the pope Frederick by a 
compact made with his vassals and prelates at the Diet 
of Frankfort procured the election of his son 

A. D. I220. ^ . 

Henry to the crown of Germany. Hononus 
expressed his displeasure at a step which seemed de- 
signed to unite permanently the Sicilian kingdom with 
the empire. Frederick hastened to say that he had no 
such wish, and that Sicily should revert to the pope if he 

should die without lawful heirs. When, a 

N^OV 22. 

little while later, he was crowned with his 
queen by the pope in the church of St. Peter's, Freder- 
ick promised that part of his army should be ready for 
the crusade in March of the following year, while he 
himself would follow in August with the rest. 

But Frederick had enough, and more than enough, to 
do in dealing with the turbulent barons of Apulia and in 
guarding against Saracen insurrection in 
Loss of ' Sicily. A fleet of forty ships was sent to no 
^"^^^ * purpose : and the tidings of the loss of 

Damietta were construed as an expression of divine dis- 
pleasure for his slackness. It was clear that only a vast 
army under a skilful general could turn the scale in favour 
of the Latin Christians of Palestine : but nothing was 
said of the besotted folly which had more than once flung 
aside all the advantages which could possibly be gained 
by the most successful crusade. Such an army could not, 
however, be got together in a month or in a year. The 
A D 1222 decision was postponed from a meeting at 

Ap"i- Veroli to a meeting at Verona which never 

took place. When next the pope and emperor met at 
Treaty of Ferentino (March 1223), it was agreed that 

Ferentino. ^^y^Q years morc should be spent in prepara- 



1222-27. The Sixth Crusade. 191 

tions, and that Frederick, now a widower, should marry 
lolante, the daughter of the titular king of Jerusalem, and 
thus as his heir go forth to the maintenance of his own 
rights. King John of Brienne, who was present at the 
debate, started at once on a mission in which he hoped to 
achieve a success not unlike that of the hermit Peter, of 
Bernard, or Fulk of Neuilly. But the times were changed, 
and king John could only report to the pope the impossi- 
bility of moving at the time named in the treaty of Feren- 
tino. A new agreement was made at San a. d. 1225. 
Germano, postponing the departure of the of San (^r-^^^ 
army for two years longer. Four months "lai^o- 
later Frederick married lolante, and proceeded at once 
to deprive his father-in-law of his shadowy royalty. John 
of Brienne, he insisted, was king only by right of his 
wife : by her death the title had passed to his daughter, 
and to him as her husband, and he, Fred- Frederick, 
erick, was thus king of Naples, Sicily, and skn^f S^^'* 
Jerusalem. John was furious, but he could Jerusalem. 
revenge himself only by accusations, whether true or 
false, of gross and habitual profligacy on the part of the 
young emperor. 

' Never did pope love emperor as he loved his son 
Frederick.' Such were the words of Honorius when he 
parted from him after his coronation at Rome. Before 
the close of his pontificate in 1227 the gentle pontiff had 
to address not a few stern remonstrances to his loving 
son. The real struggle was reserved for the papacy of 
the cardinal Ugolino, a kinsman of Inno- 

A. D. 1227. 

cent III., who assumed the triple crown at Gregory ix. 
the age of eighty years. To an eloquence ^°^^' 
unrivalled in his own day, to a profound knowledge of 
the canon law and the decretals, Gregory IX. united the 
monastic severity of Gregory the Great and the inexora- 



192 The Crusades. ch. xi. 

ble will of Gregory VII. The sovereign with whom he 
had to deal was still a young man of only thirty-three, a 
young man with whose wishes and dreams, with whose 
tastes and accomplishments, Gregory had nothing what- 
ever in common. Frederick had been born and bred in 
Sicily ; and in the voluptuous splendours of that beauti- 
ful island, in the luxury of its sunshine, in the gorgeous 
profusion and glory of its vegetation, his youth passed 
in a passion of delight, fed by the charms of music, 
poetry, painting, and a rich literature which laid at his 
feet the treasures of ancient knowledge. From the lays 
of the troubadour and the company of noble knights 
and fair women, Frederick could turn to men learned 
in the lore of the East and in the philosophy of Alexan- 
dria and Athens. His life was far from faultless. With 
more truth it may be described as one of license which 
cast to the winds, at least for himself, the moral code of 
priests and monks, but a license to which all grossness 
and coarse rioting, all unrefined and boorish vices, were 
altogether abhorrent. Here in his southern paradise 
Frederick could say, with a freedom horrifying to the 
sacerdotal spirit of the age, that if God had seen his 
beautiful home he would never have chosen the barren 
land of Judaea for the abode of his own people. Here 
too he was subjected to influences which were likely to 
cultivate a temper far more disliked and dreaded by 
popes and their followers than irreverence or even blas- 
phemous profanity. Around him were gathered popula- 
tions brought from many lands, all softened by the 
genial and delicious climate. The Norman had here laid 
aside some of his northern roughness, and become an 
apt disciple of the gay science in which Frederick had 
won a foremost place. Even the Germans were toned 
down to something like decency of demeanour and 



1227. The Sixth Crusade. 193 

language : and in contrast to these were numbers of 
Jews, who surpassed the Christians as much in refine- 
ment and learning as in their wealth, and of Saracens 
not less polished, not less cultivated, who delighted to 
call themselves subjects of Frederick and to submit 
themselves peaceably to his rule. Frederick was, in 
short, learning the dangerous lessons of toleration, and 
his eyes were being gradually opened to the perilous 
views which have become the orthodox creed of modern 
statesmen. As a ruler, he could survey without dislike 
the mingling of different religions, and see that an em- 
pire surpassing the wildest dreams of feudal grandeur 
could be achieved by the extension and freedom of a 
commerce spread over all portions of the earth. As a 
man of learning he could promote the cultivation of a 
philosophy which, whatever might be its merit, could 
not fail to set the mind working and accustom it to re- 
gard all questions as matters to be settled by reason and 
evidence, not by authority. A picture- more repulsive to 
the mind of a man like Gregory IX. cannot well be ima- 
gined. The light-hearted enjoyment and the liberal 
government of the one were hopelessly opposed to the 
monastic gloom and ingrained despotism of the other. 
Frederick may have been slow in fulfilling his promise : 
there is no evidence that he ever deliberately intended 
to break it. But he had no intention of wading through 
a sea of blood if he could obtain his ends without strik- 
ing a blow. He had already had some friendly inter- 
course with the Egyptian sultan : and from these rela- 
tions he was hereafter to reap good fruit. For the pre- 
sent they served only to excite the anger 
of Gregory, whose patience was exhaust- Excommunica- 
ed when at length Frederick gathered his "^^^^^ "^^ ^™' 
forces at Brundusium (Brindisi) only to see 

O 



194 ^>^^ Crusades. CH. xi. 

them decimated by fever, and when he himself, having 
set out with his fleet, was compelled to return after 
three days to the harbour of Otranto. On St. Michael's 
day the pope excommunicated Frederick with bell, book, 
and candle. In his discourse to the Apulian bishops, 
the subjects of Frederick, he spoke of the tender care 
with which the Church had nursed him in his infancy 
and childhood in order that he might fight the serpents 
and basilisks whom she had unwittingly fostered in her 
bosom. She had borne him on her shoulders ; she had 
rescued him from those who would have slain him ; she 
had hoped to find in him a protecting staff and support. 
These hopes had been cheated. Frederick had pur- 
posely exposed his army at Brundusium to pestilence, 
and after pretending to set off on his voyage for Pales- 
tine had returned under a false plea of illness to the 
luxuries of the baths of Puteoli. On St. Martin's day 
and again on Christmas day the excommunication was 
repeated with all its appalling ceremonies. The sentence 
was by the pope's orders to be published in all churches 
of his obedience. By one of the clergy of Paris, who 
professed to know merely the fact of the quarrel and 
nothing of the merits of the case, it was published as a 
sentence of condemnation against the one who might be 
in the wrong. ' I excommunicate the aggressor, and I 
absolve the sufferer.' Frederick appealed not to the pope, 
but to the sovereigns of Christendom. His illness had 
been real, the accusations of the pope wanton and cruel. 
' The Christian charity which should hold all things to- 
gether is dried up at its source, in its stem, not in its 
branches. What had the pope done in England but stir 
up the barons against John, and then abandon them to 
death or ruin? The whole world paid tribute to his 
avarice. His legates were everywhere, gathering where 



12 28. The Sixth Crusade. 195 

they had not sown, and reaping where they had not 
strawed.' But although he thus dealt in language as 
furious as that of the pope, the thought of breaking 
definitely with him and of casting aside his crusading 
vow as a worthless mockery never seems to have en- 
tered his mind. He undertook to bring his armies to- 
gether again with all speed, and to set off on his expedi- 
tion. His promise only brought him into fresh trouble 
with the pope, who in the Holy Week next 
following laid under interdict every place in 
which Frederick might happen to be. If this censure 
should be treated with contempt, his sub- ^ 

^ Departure of 

jects were at once absolved from their al- Frederick from 

T . n-., . . j'l Brundusium. 

legiance. The emperor went on steadily 
with his preparations, and then went to Brundusium. 
He was met by papal messengers who strictly forbade 
him to leave Italy until he had offered satisfaction for 
his offences against the Church. In his turn Frederick, 
having sailed to Otranto, sent his own envoys to the 
pope to demand the removal of the interdict ; and these, 
of course, were dismissed with contempt. 

In September the emperor landed at Ptolemais ; but 
the emissaries of the pope had preceded him, and he 
found himself under the ban of the clergy , ,. , 

, . . _, Landmgof 

and shunned by their partisans. The pa- Frederick at 
triarch and the masters of the military o^n^^is. 
orders were to see that none served under his polluted 
banners. The charge was given to willing servants : 
but Frederick found friends in the Teutonic knights 
under their grand-master Herman of Salza, as well as 
with the body of pilgrims generally. He determined to 
possess himself of Joppa, and summoned all the crusaders 
to his aid. The Templars refused to stir, if any orders 
were to be issued in his name ; and Frederick agreed 



196 The Crusades, CH. xi. 

that they should run in the name of God and Christen- 
dom. But while the enemy was aided greatly by the 
divisions among the Christians, the death of the Damas- 
cene sultan Moadhin was of little use to Frederick. The 
Egyptian sultan Kameel was now in a position of 
greater independence, and his eagerness for an alliance 
with the emperor had rapidly cooled dowil. Frederick 
on his side still resolved to try the effect of negotiation. 
His demands extended at first, it is said, to 

A. D. 1229. . ^. , T . , . 

Feb. 13. the complete restoration of the Latm kmg- 

tween^Frede- dom, and ended, if we are to believe Ara- 
suU n K^meY t)ian chrouiclcrs, in almost abject supplica- 
tions. At length the treaty was signed. It 
surrendered to the emperor the whole of Jerusalem ex- 
cept the Temple or mosque of Omar, the keys of which 
were to be retained by the Saracens ; but Christians 
under certain conditions might be allowed to enter it for 
the purpose of prayer. It further restored to the Chris- 
tians the towns of Jaffa, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. 

To Frederick the conclusion of this treaty was a rea- 
son for legitimate satisfaction. It enabled him to hasten 
^ , . , back to his own dominions, where a papal 

Frederick at ' jt jr 

Jerusalem. army was ravaging Apulia and threatening 
Sicily. One task only remained for him in the East. 
He must pay his vows at the Holy Sepulchre. But here 
also the hand of the pope lay heavy upon him. Not 
merely Jerusalem but the Sepulchre itself passed under 
the interdict as he enterM the gates of the city, and the 
infidel Moslem saw the churches closed and all worship 
suspended at the approach of the Christian emperor. 
On Sunday, in his imperial robes, and attended by a 
magnificent retinue, Frederick went to his coronation as 
king of Jerusalem in the church of the Sepulchre. Not 
a single ecclesiastic was there to take part in the cere- 



12 29- The Sixth Crusade. 197 

mony. The archbishops of Capua and Palermo stood 
aloof, while Frederick, taking the crown from the high 
altar, placed it on his head. By his orders his friend 
Herman of Salza read an address in which the emperor 
acquitted the pope for his hard judgment of him and 
for his excommunication, and added that a real know- 
ledge of the facts would have led him to speak not 
against him, but in his favour. He confessed his desire 
to put to shame the false friends of Christ, his accusers 
and slanderers, by the restoration of peace and unity, 
and to humble himself before God and before his Vicar 
upon earth. 

From the Saracens he won golden opinions. The 
kadi silenced a muezzin who had to proclaim the hour of 
prayer from a minaret near the house in ,, , 

^ J Moderation 

which the emperor lodged, because he of the em- 
added to his call the question, ' How is it ^^^'^^' 
possible that God had for his son Jesus the son of Mary ?' 
Frederick marked the silence of the crier when the hour 
of prayer came round. On learning the cause he re- 
buked the kadi for neglecting on his account his duty 
and his religion, and warned him that if he should visit 
him in his kingdom he would find no such ill-judged 
deference. He showed no dissatisfaction, it is said, 
with the inscription which declared that Saladin had 
purified the city from those who worshipped many gods, 
or any displeasure when the Mahomedans in his train 
fell on their knees at the times for prayer. His thoughts 
about the Christians were shown, it was supposed, when, 
seeing the windows of the Holy Chapel barred to keep 
out the birds which might defile it, he asked, ' You 
may keep out the birds ; but how will you keep out the 
swine ?' 

In glowing terms Frederick wrote to the sovereigns of 



igS The O'usades, CH. xi. 

Europe, announcing the splendid success which he had 
achieved rather by the pen than by the sword. He 
Condemnation ^carcely knew what a rock of offence he 
of the had raised up amongst Christian and Mos- 

Gregory^iX. lem ahke. By a few words on a sheet 
of parchment the Christian emperor had deprived his 
people of the hope of getting their sins forgiven by mur- 
dering unbelievers : by the same words the Moslem sul- 
tan had prevented his subjects from ensuring an en- 
trance to the delights of paradise by the slaughter of the 
Nazarenes. From Ceroid, patriarch of Jerusalem, a 
letter went to the pope, full of virulent abuse of the em- 
peror as a traitor, an apostate, and ^a robber ; but even 
before he received this letter Gregory had condemned 
what he chose to consider as a monstrous attempt to re- 
concile Christ and Belial, and to set up Mahomed as an 
object of worship in the temple of God. ' The antago- 
nist of the cross,' he wrote, the enemy of the faith and 
of all chastity, the wretch doomed to hell, is lifted up 
for adoration, by a perverse judgment, and by an intoler- 
able insult to the Saviour, to the lasting disgrace of the 
Christian name and the contempt of all the martyrs who 
have laid down their lives to purify the Holy Land from 
the defilements of the Saracens.' 

But Frederick in his turn could be firm and unyielding. 
He returned from Jerusalem to Joppa, from Joppa to Pto- 
Returnofthe lemais ; and there learning that a proposal 
emperor with -^^ been made to establish a new order of 

the crusaders '■'^"■^ 

to Europe. knights, he declared that no one should 
without his consent levy soldiers within his dominion. 
Summoning all the Christians within the city to the 
broad plain without the gates, he spoke his mind freely 
about the conduct of the patriarch and the Templars, with 
all who aided and abetted them, and insisted that all the 



1229. The Seventh Crusade. 199 

pilgrims, having now paid their vows, should return at 
once to Europe. On this point he was inexorable. His 
archers took possession of the churches ; two friars who 
denounced him from the pulpit were scourged through 
the streets ; the patriarch was shut up in his palace ; and 
the commands of the emperor were carried out. Fred- 
erick returned to Europe, to find that the pope had been 
stirring up Albert of Austria to rebel against him, and 
that the papal forces were in command of Renewed ex- 

Ti./-T»' -L 1- -L J.-L communica- 

John of Brienne, who may have been the tionofthe 
author of the false news of Frederick's emperor, 
death, and who certainly proclaimed himself as the 
only emperor. To the pope Frederick sent his envoys, 
Herman of Salza at their head. They were dismissed 
with contempt ; and their master was again placed under 
the greater excommunication with the Albigensians, the 
Poor Men of Lyons, the Arnoldists, and other heretics who 
in the eyes of the faithful were the worst enemies of the 
Christian church. Such was the reward of the man who 
had done more towards the re-establishment of the Latin 
kingdom in Palestine than had been done by the lion- 
hearted Richard, and who, it may fairly be said, had 
done it without shedding a drop of blood. 



CHAPTER Xn. 



THE SEVENTH CRUSADE. 



The number of the crusades might be largely extended 
if we gave the name to all the minor expeditions to the 
Holy Land in the intervals between the Richard, earl 
greater enterprises to which the term has king ofthe ' 
been commonly applied. Yet the expedition Ronians. 
led by Richard, earl of Cornwall, king of the Romans 



200 



The Crusades. CH. xii. 



and brother of Henry III. of England, as being scarcely 
less remarkable than that of Frederick II., and for the 
same reason, may fairly be reckoned as the seventh of 
these extravagant and ill-starred enterprises. 

Time had softened in some degree the spirit which 
had animated the first crusaders ; but in the events which 
follow the return of Frederick we see some- 
pecdSion thing like an honest reaction against the 

plpai^coU^ diversion to other purposes of money con- 
lectors, tributed for the deliverance of Palestine. 
These diversions had become so frequent that the papal 
collectors regarded it as an annoyance or an insult if 
any refused to commute by money payments their en- 
gagements as crusaders. 

The peace which the Egyptian sultan Kameel had 
made with Frederick was little more than a truce. It 
was to last for ten years ; but even during that term the 
A. D. 1230. compact was kept with no rigid strictness 
STe'pope perhaps on either side. Thousands of 
and the em- Christians were slain, it is said, on their pas- 

peror to the ^ 

new crusade, sage from Acre to Jerusalem, and envoys 
were sent to Gregory IX. and to Frederick, with whom 
he had been reconciled at Anagni, to entreat the equip- 
ment of another crusade. The crusade was enjoined, 
A D 1236— accordingly, but, as it seemed, with little 
1239- sincerity ; and when the French barons, 

headed by Theobald, count of Champagne and king of 
Navarre, and Hugh, duke of Burgundy, met in council 
at Lyons, they were commanded by the papal legate to 
adjourn their discussions and to return home. The re- 
quest was peremptorily refused ; but when their plans 
seemed to be in all respects matured, the ambassadors 
of Frederick himself besought them to wait until he 
could give them effectual help. Even to this appeal they 



1242. The Seventh Crusade. 201 

turned a deaf ear : and although Frederick charged his 
officers to withhold all aid from the crusaders, these 
barons still insisted on carrying out their design and 
found their way to Acre, Before they Arrival of 
reached it, Kameel had seized Jerusalem '^^^ French 

•' crusaders at 

and dismantled the tower of David ; and Acre. 

the crusaders had before them a task not less arduous 

than that which Godfrey of Bouillon and 

, Their com- 

his followers had to encounter. Their fail- piete failure. 
ure was complete ; it can scarcely be said that they even 
attempted to grapple with it. 

The English crusade which under Richard of Corn- 
wall and William Long-sword (son of the 

° ^ ^ A. D. 1240. 

earl of Salisbury, but not earl of Salisbury The English 
himself) embarked at Dover for France, and 
having journeyed across France set sail from Marseilles 
in spite of a papal prohibition, was followed by results 
far more solid. On reaching Acre, they found the affairs 
both of Christians and Moslems in a state of strange 
confusion through treaties which neither side was able 
strictly to carry out. But the quarrel which q> ^ 1^ 
had broken out afresh between the sultans tween Richard 

- - , ,.of Cornwall 

of Egypt and Damascus told greatly in and the Egyp- 
their favor. The march of Richard to Jaffa '^^" '"^'^"■ 
led to negotiations, and by the treaty which followed 
them the Egyptian sultan granted him terms even more 
favourable than those which had been conceded to 
Frederick II. 

Palestine was once more virtually in the hands of the 
Christians, and in their hands it virtually remained, un- 
til, two years later, the Latin kingdom was 

_ •' ' ° _ A. D. 1242. 

again swept away by a foe more merciless Invasion of 

, , . •, 1 1 ,1 theKoras- 

than any which the crusaders had yet en- mians. 
countered. The brutal hordes, which Genghis Khan 



202 The Crusades. * CH. xiii. 

had set in motion from the remote wilds of Tartary, 
drove out from the Korasmian territories myriads of 
myriads scarcely less brutal than themselves. The fugi- 
tive Korasmians burst into Palestine. Jerusalem was 
deserted by its garrison, and the savages hastened to 
glut themselves with blood. The living were cut down, 
the dead torn from their graves, and thousands of pil- 
grims, decoyed back to the city by the display of crusa- 
ding banners from the walls, furnished fresh victims for 
Alliance of ^he awful sacrifice. In this desperate strait 
the Tern- ^j^g Templars made common cause with the 

plars and the ^ 

Syrians. Syrians. A battle was fought in which the 

grand-masters of the Templars and Hospitallers were 
slain, the only survivors being thirty-three Templars, 
sixteen Hospitallers, and three Teutonic knights. The 
Korasmians were for the present in league with the 
Egyptian sovereign ; but this harmony was soon fol- 
lowed by enmity. The Korasmians were defeated and 
scattered, and the tempest of barbarian invasion came 
to an end. 



CHAPTER Xni. 



THE EIGHTH CRUSADE. 



The havoc wrought by the Korasmian inroad was 
alleged by pope Innocent IV. as a reason for 
Councn'lf sending forth another crusade. In a council 
Lyons. held at Lyons, the bishop of Berytos dwelt on 

the miserable state of the Christians in the Holy Land, 
and it was resolved that another effort should be made 
for its deliverance. Honorius wrote to Henry III. of 
England to impress upon him the duty of taking up the 
cross like his lion-hearted predecessor ; but Henry had in 



1226. The Eighth Crusade. 203 

Simon of Montfort, earl of Leicester, a more pressing 
antagonist than Egyptian sultans or Korasmian savages. 
The pope found fuel more easily kindled in the heart of 
Louis IX., king of France. 

This saint, the very type of royal monks and devotees, 
was ten years old when on the death of his father Louis 
VIII. he succeeded to the throne. By his 

A. D. 1226. 

mother, Blanche of Castile, the regent of the Louis ix., 
kingdom, the child was brought up with a '"^° 
strictness to which he answered with unbounded docility. 
In his early youth the beauty of some fair maidens drew 
from him a glance expressive of some admiration : his 
mother told him that she would rather see him dead than 
that he should entertain even a sinful thought. His own 
will would have led him to assume the obligations of the 
cloister ; but the interests of the state demanded his mar- 
riage, and his wife, Margaret of Provence, passed with her 
husband under the rigid discipline of the queen-mother. 
His severity to himself grew with his years. At night 
he would rise from his bed and pace his chamber in the 
coldest season. A shift of the coarsest haircloth worn 
next to his skin furnished a desirable torture. Fruit he 
tasted only once in the year. On Fridays he never 
changed his dress, and never laughed. The iron chain 
scourges which he carried at his waist in an ivory case 
drew blood from his shoulders once every week of the 
year and thrice in every week during Lent. He would 
walk for miles to distant churches wearing shoes with- 
out soles. He would scarcely content himself with two, 
three, and even four masses a day ; and if he made a 
journey, his chaplain recited the offices on the road. 
Even monks tried to check an asceticism almost exceed- 
ing that which was demanded by the rules of Benedict, 
Dominic, or Francis ; the king asked whether he would 



204 The Crusades. ch. xiii. 

have incurred the same rebuke had he spent twice as 
much time in hawking and dicing. No reproach, no 
sarcasm, no insult, could disturb the serenity of hishum- 
ble soul. ' You are not a king of France,* exclaimed a 
woman who was pleading her. cause before him; 'you 
are a king only of priests and monks. It is a pity that you 
are king of France. You ought to be turned out.* 'You 
speak truly,' answered Louis. ' It has pleased God to 
make me king : it had been well had He chosen some 
one better able to govern this kingdom rightly.' The 
woman was sent away with a gift of money : and money 
was a thing on which the king set little store, and which 
he seldom needed except for the purchase of relics. 
Here his avarice was unbounded ; and we have seen 
him paying the enormous sum of 10,000 silver marks for 
the ' genuine crown of thorns ' preserved in the church 
of Sancta Sophia (p. 173). To such a man absolute 
obedience and implicit trust not only in God but in every 
article- or proposition set forth as forming part of the 
Christian faith were the first, the most indispensable of 
all virtues. Not one point in all the theology of the 
Church was to be called into question ; there was not 
one which was not to be received as absolutely true. 
' Do you know the name of your father ?' he asked his 
seneschal, the lord of Joinville, who accompanied him 
to Palestine, and whose inimitable memoirs bring the 
man and his age before us in living reality. 'Yes,* 
answered the seneschal; 'his name was Simon.' 'How 
do you know that ?' again asked Louis. ' Because my 
mother has told me so many times.* 'Then,* answered 
the king, ' you ought perfectly to believe the articles of 
the faith which the apostles of our Lord have testified to 
you, as you have heard the Credo chanted every Sunday. 
For questioning and argument his system had no place. 



1226. The Eighth Crusade. 205 

Under no circumstances could there ever be need of any. 
He related to Joinville with hearty approval the conduct 
of a knight, who, during a disputation between some Jews 
and the monks of the abbey of Clugny, asked leave of 
the abbot to say a few words. With some difficulty his 
request was granted. Raising himself on his crutches, 
the old warrior beckoned the rabbi to draw near, and 
then put to him one question. ' Do you believe in the 
Virgin Mary, who bore our Saviour Jesus Christ, and that 
she was a virgin when she was the mother of God ?' The 
Jew answered promptly that he believed not one word of 
it. ' Fool that thou art,' replied the knight, ' for daring to 
enter a Christian monastery when thou disbelievest these 
things. For this madness thou shalt now pay.' Lifting 
up his crutch, he struck the man a blow on the ear which 
smote him to the ground. His comrades fled away from 
the scene of controversy, jwhile the abbot came forward 
to reprove the knight for his folly . ' Thou art the greater 
fool,' was the retort, 'in permitting an assembly from 
which good Christians might by listening to their argu- 
ments have gone away unbelievers.' The king, Joinville 
tells us, clinched the moral of the story in the following 
words : ' No one, however learned or perfect a theologian 
he may be, ought to dispute with Jews. The layman, 
whenever he hears the Christian faith impugned, should 
defend it with a sharp-edged sword which he should 
drive up to the hilt into the bodies of the unbelievers.' 

We cannot really know the history of an age, if we do 
not really know some at least of the men who lived in it : 
and this fact gives in the case of Louis IX. . ^ 
an importance to details which we might be the pope and 

, , the emperor. 

tempted to pass with a sigh, perhaps, or a 

smile. ' Do you wash the feet of the poor on Holy 

Thursday ?' he asked the lord of Joinville. ' Oh, fie ! 



2o6 The Crusades. < ch. xiii. 

was the answer ; ' no, never will I wash the feet of such 
fellows.' ' It is ill said, indeed,' answered the king, 'for 
you should never hold in disdain what God did for our 
instruction ; for He who is Lord and Master of the uni- 
verse did on that day, Holy Thursday, wash the feet of 
all His apostles, telling them that He who was their 
Master had thus done, that they in like manner might do 
the same to each other. I therefore beg of you, out of 
love to Him first, and then from regard to me, that you 
will accustom yourself to do so.' Another sermon, the 
gentleness of which makes us forget its tedious prosing, 
rebuked Joinville's impetuosity in saying that he would 
rather have committed thirty deadly sins than be a leper. 
Louis was, in short, a man who would have loved all 
men, had he not been taught to believe that unbelief, 
heresy, or even doubt (honest doubt was for him, of 
course, a thing inconceivable), put the unbeliever or 
doubter beyond the pale of Christian charity. For Jews, 
then, or infidels he avowed the most burning hatred, al- 
though probably this hatred would have vanished like 
morning mist before the sight of Jew or infidel in dire 
distress or agony. But in spite of his bigotry and 
narrowness, his stern asceticism, his incessant ser- 
monizing, there was in him a depth of sweetness and 
gentleness, a genuine goodness of heart and life, which 
won for him the love of thousands who made little 
attempt to follow his example. In an age infamous for 
its foulness of speech and the profanity of its oaths the 
purity of his language was never tarnished. In his 
quaint phrases Joinville says of him, ' I never heard him, 
at any time, utter an indecent word nor make use of the 
devil's name, which is now very commonly uttered by 
every one— a practice which, I firmly believe, far from 
being agreeable to God, is highly displeasing to Him.' 



1 2 3 9-1 2 45 . 7he Eighth Crusade. 207 

Nay, more, these qualities were in him combined with a 
sound sense and a firmness of will which made him in 
all cases of right and duty hard as adamant, and effec- 
tually crushed the contempt which some might have 
been tempted to feel for his superstitions. He could 
bear rebuke patiently : but they who thought that they 
might take advantage of his devotion to encroach on his 
rights as king or even on the rights of his neighbours 
found themselves speedily undeceived. When Gregory 
IX., after his second and final rupture with Frederick II., 
deposed him from his imperial throne and 

^ , A. D. 1239. 

offered the dignity to Louis's brother Robert, 
the meek and gentle king replied to the pope in the fol- 
lowing words : — Whence is this pride and daring of the 
pope, which thus disinherits a king who has no superior, 
nor even an equal, among Christians, — a king not con- 
victed of the crimes laid_ to his charge ? Even if these 
crimes were proved, no power could depose him but that 
of a general council. On his transgressions the judg- 
ment of his enemies is of no weight, and his deadliest 
enemy is the pope. To us he has not only thus far ap- 
peared guiltless, he has been a good neighbour : we see 
no cause for suspicion either of his worldly loyalty or of 
his Catholic faith. This we know, that he has fought 
valiantly for our Lord Jesus Christ both by sea and land. 
So much religion we have not found in the pope, who 
endeavoured to confound and wickedly supplant him in 
his absence, while he was engaged in the cause of God. 
In this cause, as interpreted by the religion of the time, 
this guiltless but stout-hearted champion of justice and 
right was now to peril limb and life without 

° ^ A. D. 1245. 

a shade of fear and with as complete a lack Assumption 

f. 1 . 11. 1 1 of the cross 

01 every quality needed m a general and by Louis ix. 
leader of armies. A more thorough contrast to Frederick 



2o8 The Crusades. ch. xiii. 

whom he thus valiantly defended it would be impossible 
to imagine. To him the learning, the grace, the refine- 
ment of heathen philosophers and poets, the music and 
the songs of all poets of all ages, were beyond expression 
horrible. Of an intercommunion of nations founded on 
commerce, learning, and art, he could have not the 
faintest notion. To the best of his power he would ad- 
minister justice in his own land so long as he remained 
in it ; when his duty as a champion of the cross called 
him elsewhere, he would leave it with fifty thousand men 
in his train, having formed no military plans, but under 
a profound conviction that God whom he sought to serve 
would fight his battles, and that, if it should not be so, 
the result would be due only to his own sins and sinful- 
ness. To the remonstrances of his mother, who sought 
to dissuade him from the enterprise, his ear was utterly 
deaf. He was seized with illness : life seemed to be gone ; 
A D 1244. ^^ attendant, thinking that it had gone, drew 
Dec. 10. 2l covering over his face. It was withdrawn 

by another, and the king was heard to say, ' God has 
raised me from the dead : give me the cross.' The die 
was cast. Nine months later, he assumed the badge 
publicly in the parliament of Paris ; and at Christmas in 
the same year he distributed to his courtiers his usual 
gift of a new robe to each. By his orders a red cross 
had been embroidered on these garments between the 
shoulders, and the nobles owned themselves fairly en- 
trapped. They must accompany the king. 

Two years more were spent in preparations. On the 

1 2th of June 1248 Louis received from the papal legate 

at the abbey of St. Denis his purse and pil- 

Departure of . rr • ■* t r^ • n j 

Louis from grim s Staff With the Ormamme or sacred 
France. banner of the saint. At the end of August 

he sailed from France. Eight months were spent in 



1249* '^^^^ Eighth Crusade. 209 

Cyprus, where his people were fed in great part by the 
emperor Frederick. The kindness called forth a warm 
letter to the pope, pleading for the absolution of a man 
who had thus befriended the soldiers of the cross. His 
letter was treated with contempt. In the 

^ A. D. 1249. 

spring of the next year he sailed for Egypt; 
and as soon as his fleet was off Damietta, his envoys 
hastened to the sultan with alarming pictures of their 
master's power, and with a summons for immediate sub- 
mission. The sultan replied that his cause was just; 
that those who made war without just cause should 
perish ; and that mighty armaments had often been de- 
stroyed by a handful of soldiers. 

The campaign began with a signal success. The garri- 
son of Damietta, struck with something like panic fear, 
fled at the sight of the fifty thousand cru- _ . 

° ^ — •' Capture of 

saders landing in the pomp of military Damietta. 
parade. The place was taken ; but the people had hur- 
ried away to Cairo, having first set fire to 
that quarter of the city in which they had 
stored their merchandise and their most valuable pro- 
perty. This victory had its usual result on the crusaders. 
The tenor of Louis's saintly life was unbroken ; but 
within a stone's throw of his tent his people were in- 
dulging in unbounded debauchery. 

Later in the season an addition to their force was made 
by 200 English knights under William Longsword (p. 
194) now bishop of Salisbury ; and in No- ,, , 

^^> ^ •' ' March of the 

vember the army began its march towards army towards 
Cairo. Their progress, never easy, owing 
to the assaults of the enemy, was effectually checked at 
the canal of Ashmoun. The causeways which they at- 
tempted to construct were destroyed, and their machines 
burnt with Greek fire. At length a Bedoween, for a 

P 



2IO 7he Crusades. CH. xiii. 

large bribe, showed them a ford. The passage was ef- 
fected, and the enemy fled before them on the other 
side. With good order and discipHne the crusaders 
might now have achieved some soHd success. But the 
count of Artois, brother of the king, could not wait to be 
joined by the main army. He must press on at once 
against the fugitives. In vain the grand-master of the 
Templars reminded him of the folly of trusting to a feel- 
ing of passing fear. The count deliberately imputed his 
advice to systematic treachery. * Do you suppose,' re- 
plied the Templar with calm dignity, ' that we have left 
our homes and our substance, and taken the religious 
habit in a strange land, only to betray the cause of God 
and to forfeit our salvation ?' The bishop of Salisbury 
offered his mediation : it was rejected with a biting in- 
sult. In thorough disorder the crusaders rushed into 
Mansourah ; and seeing their condition at a glance the 
Mamelukes rushed upon their prey. A sufficient force 
was sent to cut off all communication between the men 
with the count of Artois and the main army under the king. 
Boiling water, stones, blazing wood, were 
the^forces^^' ° hurled upon them from the houses. The 
under the count couut of Artois was killed before he could 

of Artois. 

see the full effects of his folly; and his 
death was soon followed by that of William Longsword. 
The utter destruction of his force was prevented only by 
succour from the king who, feeble though he may have 
been as a general, showed in the hour of danger a 
dauntless and unselfish bravery. Both sides had suf- 
fered fearfully; but the king was cut off from Damietta, 
and sickness of a singularly malignant kind began to 
waste his camp. Louis offered the enemy a treaty based 
on the exchange of Damietta for the lordship of Jeru- 
salem. The negotiation failed, and retreat became ine- 



1250. The Eighth Crusade. 211 

vitable ; but at the river and before the canal they had 
to fight at desperate disadvantage. The 
courage of the king was unbroken ; but his The king taken 
strength was gone. He sank down in a 
state of exhaustion after exertions worthy of the Enghsh 
Richard, and awoke to find himself a prisoner. Some 
there were, says Joinville, to whom the idea of retreat 
was intolerable ; and the thought of the age is vividly 
marked in the story which tells us how James du Chastel, 
bishop of Soissons, preferred to live with God to return- 
ing to the land of his birth, how he made a charge on 
the Turks, as if he alone meant to fight their whole 
army, and how they soon sent him to God and placed him 
in the company of martyrs by forthwith cutting him down. 
The crusade seemed to be closing in hopeless disaster. 
The queen at Damietta was about to become a mother, 
when she heard the tidings of her husband's captivity. 
A premature birth followed. She called her babe Tris- 
tan, the child of sorrow. Louis himself had to undergo 
greater misery. Of 10,000 Christian prisoners in Man- 
sourah those only who embraced the faith of Islam were 
allowed to live. Some recanted, and Louis had the bit- 
terness of witnessing their apostasy : the vast majority 
stood firm, and he had the agony of seeing 
them die. But at no time was he known to Se'ki'ng- °^ 
exhibit a more unclouded trust in God, a 
more cool bravery towards his enemy. Peace was 
offered to him if he would surrender all the Christian 
fortresses in Syria. He answered that they were not his 
to surrender, and that he could not dispose of that which 
belonged to Frederick H. as king of Jerusalem. He was 
threatened with torture to his limbs, with 
the degradation of being carried from city ^^^^ °^ ^^"" 
to city and exposed for the gratification of 



212 The Crusades. CH. xiii. 

sight-seers. He replied quietly, ' I am your prisoner. 
You may do with me as you will.' At last it was ar- 
ranged that Damietta should be given up, that the king 
should pay one million byzants for his own ransom, and 
half a million French livres for his barons: He de- 
murred to the amount for himself, but agreed at once to 
the other. 'The king of France,' he said, 'must not 
haggle about the freedom of his subjects.' Not to be 
outdone by his unselfishness, the sultan Turan Shah 
struck off one fifth from his ransom. 

It was almost the last act of the sultan's 

Murder of t-i ii i 

Turan Shah. life. His murder heightened the dangers 

of the Christian captives ; the firmness of 
Louis in refusing to take an oath couched in what he 
pronounced to be blasphemous language increased them 
still more. The difficulty was at length got over ; and 

after enduring sufferings for which the Sara- 
Loutrix. ^^^'^s said (if we may believe Joinville) that 

if they had had to undergo them they would 
have renounced Mahomed, the king was free. 

Still Louis, with the bare relics of his army, could not 

bring himself to return home. He had written again and 

. again to urge on Henry of England the duty 

of Louis to of coming himself with instant and effectual 

succour; he could not think that Henry 
would disregard his entreaties, especially when these 
were backed by offers of the surrender of Normandy. 
He still fancied that the Vicar of Christ himself, having 
made up his long quarrel with Frederick, would hasten 
to join his faithful children and lead them in a supreme 
effort which could not fail of success. He was abandoned 
by his brothers the counts of Anjou and Poitou ; but 
with his faithful seneschal he made a pilgrimage in sack- 
cloth to Nazareth. The sight of the Holy Sepulchre, 



1250. The Ninth Crusade. 213 

the dearest longing of his heart, he firmly denied him- 
self. The permission to visit it was freely offered by the 
sultan of Damascus : but Louis would not leave behind 
for future sovereigns a precedent by which they might 
reap the fruits of an enterprise in which they had 
failed. He returned to Europe like Richard of England, 
humbled but not dishonoured ; — rather, to speak more 
strictly, having won that serene renown which was soon 
to place his name in the long catalogue of the saints. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NINTH CRUSADE. 

Throughout the history of the crusades the wisdom 
of the general or the statesman is conspicuous by its 
absence ; and we may fairly compare the comparison 
long series of these wild enterprises with the °^^^j^ earlier 
erratic course and fitful splendour of a comet crusades, 
which at the moment of its greatest brilliancy rushes off 
into an ocean of darkness. They carried with them, as 
we have seen (p. 107), not one of the elements of per- 
manent success, while they lasted long enough to im- 
poverish myriads and carry misery and grief to the 
homes of millions. But the qualities which had won for 
the earlier crusaders whatever renown they may have 
acquired, were exhibited in full measure to the end. 
Their absolute fearlessness, their firm persistence in the 
faith which alone they could allow to be true, their he- 
roic endurance of the suffering which in hours of triumph 
they seldom hesitated to inflict on others, are beyond 
question ; but all these are virtues which apart from the 
sagacity of the wise ruler may be brilliant but must be 
eminently useless. 



214 7he Crusades. ch. xiv. 

This wisdom the Latin Christians of Palestine were 
destined never to learn. Disunion ran perpetually into 
quarrels, — quarrel sometimes into open warfare. Be- 
tween the Venetians and the men of Pisa and Genoa 
there was but at best but a hollow truce. The side which 
A. D. 1259. ^^ Templars might take in a dispute was 
t^een the ^°^ ^^^^ which would be taken by the Hos- 

Tempiars pitallers or the Teutonic knisj^hts ; and the 

and Hospi- ^ , . . ^ . r -. 

taiiers. schism 01 the two former of these orders 

led in 1259 to a pitched battle from which scarcely a 
Templar escaped alive. From slaughtering each other 
the champions of the cross passed to the slaughter-houses 
of Saracen executioners. The savage warriors of the 
Mameluke sultan Bibars seized Nazareth and Acre, tor- 
turing to death those who had not been happy enough 
to fall on the battle-field. Ninety Hospitallers held the 
fortress of Azotus ! the last of them died 

A. D. 1263. 

Invasion cf when at length their enemies stormed the 

Palestine by ,, „, , r o i. 

the Mame. walls. 1 he castle 01 baphouri was surren- 
Bibare"^*^^"^ dered by the Templars on the condition 

that the garrison, numbering 600 men in 
all, should be safely conveyed to the next Christian 
town. The sultan flung the treaty to the winds, and 
gave them a few hours to make their choice between 
death and apostasy. The prior and two Franciscan 
monks besought their companions to stand fast in their 
faith ; and when the sultan demanded their answer, 
not a man shrunk from the penalty of refusal. All were 
slaughtered, the prior with the two monks being flayed 
alive. 

At length the tidings reached Europe that Bohemond 
VI. had been driven from Antioch and that his city had 

passed into the hands of the unbelievers. 

Loss of 

Antioch. The Saintly Louis still yearned for the rescue 



1270. The Ninth Crusade. 215 

of the holy places ; but the memory of his past disasters 
led him to fear that his sinfulness or his bad 
generalship might again bring disgrace on 
the Christian arms. His diffidence called forth the en- 
couragement of pope Clement IV., who with greater im- 
portunity urged Henry III. of England to do his duty by 
taking the cross. Three years had passed since the fatal 
defeat of Simon of Montfort, earl of Leices- 

A. D. 1265. 

ter, at Evesham : but the country, although 
not in actual war, was by no means in a state of repose, 
and we might wonder why at such a time the prince who 
was afterwards to reign as Edward I. should pledge him- 
self to the new crusade, were it not clear that the enter- 
prise was one which might be used for the purpose of 
drawing away from England men who might be trouble- 
some or dangerous to his father or to himself. Edward 
took good care that the earl of Gloucester whom he feared 
the most should share his perils, if not his glory, in the 
East. 

With sixty thousand men, Louis IX., accompanied by 
the counts of Flanders, Brittany, Champagne, and other 
barons, left France to return to it no more. ^ 

o T • 1 Second cru- 

A storm drove the fleet to Sardmia ; and sade of Louis 

IX 
there it was decided that the crusaders 

should in the first instance go to Tunis. Charles of 

Anjou, the sovereign of Sicily, was anxious 

to maintain the rights of Christendom by 

exacting a tribute paid formerly to his predecessors : the 

devout Louis remembered, it is said, the messages by 

which the king of Tunis had expressed his wish to em-^ 

brace Christianity, and thought that the presence of a, 

large army would give him courage to make open con^ 

fession of the true faith. The army landed and ha4 

encamped, we are told, on the site of Carthage, when a, 



21 6 The Crusades. CH. xiv. 

plague broke out, and amongst its crowd of victims 
struck the king. His whole life had been a prayer : it 
remained to the last a prayer for others rather than for 
Death of the himself. With serene submission to the 
^'"s- divine counsels he stretched himself on his ,, 

couch of ashes, and as he uttered the words, ' I will enter 
Thy house, O Lord, I will worship in Thy sanctuary,' 
he died. 

When the English Edward at last arrived in the camp, 
he saw that the idea of reaching Palestine before the 
winter was impracticable, and made up his mind to return 
to Sicily until the spring. When at length he reached 
A. D. 1271. Acre, he found that his name carried with 
Nazareth°by it mucli of the terror associated with that of 
Snenr' IK Richard Plantagenet. The Christians has- 
of England. tcued to his Standard, and with 7,000 men he 
attacked and took Nazareth, slaying the people with 
a massacre as pitiless as any which had sulHed the 
chronicles of the crusades. It was his first and his last 
victory in Palestine. His campaign was cut short by 
sickness, and the dagger of an assassin sent by the emir 
of Joppa as a bearer of letters touching his conversion to 
Christianity well nigh cut short his life. Edward hurled 
the murderer to the floor and stabbed him to the heart. 
But the dagger was undoubtedly poisoned ; and it needed 
more than ordinary skill on the part of the surgeons to 
arrest the progress of the venom. The sides of the wound 
were carefully pared away; and the strength of youth 
with the tender nursing of his wife Eleanor did the rest. 
The romancers of a later age framed the tale that he 
must have died, had she not with her lips sucked the 
poison from the wound. 

It was clear that nothing more could be done in the 
Holy Land, and Edward knew not how soon his presence 



127^-76. The Ninth Crusade. 217 

might become indispensable in England. A ^ ^ ^^^^ 
peace was made for ten years, and the ^dwar/to 
Eng-lish crusaders set out on their homeward Europe. 
voyage. For a long series of years Europe had been 
making vigorous efforts, and the result of these efforts 
had been nothing more substantial or permanent than 
the hnes left on the sea sand by an ebbing tide. For 
one moment it seemed that the spirit of the dream might 
be changed, when Theobald, archdeacon of Liege, the 
friend of the English Edward, was summoned from 
Acre to fill the chair of St. Peter as Gregory X. Theo- 
bald had been an eye-witness of the des- Vain efforts 
perate calamities which were crushing the °^ Gregory X. 

^ ° to stir up a 

Latins of Palestine, and he called the princes crusade. 

of Europe to the rescue with a zeal worthy of Innocent 

III. or of Urban II. A council held at Lyons 

A. D. 1274. 

decreed a new crusade. Rodolph of Haps- 
burg, not yet firm in his imperial dignity, pledged him- 
self 'to join it ; and his example was followed by Michael 
Paleologos who thirteen years earlier (1287) had put 
down the Latin dynasty in Constantinople. 

•^ . A. D. 1276. 

But Gregory died in less than two years 

after the assembly at Lyons, and his visions of renewed 

conquests in Palestine died with him. 

In the Holy Land itself the miserable Christian rem- 
nant adhered to its old tradition of fighting about shadows 
when the substance had been already lost, ciaims to the 
Husrh III. of Cyprus had had himself crown- titular king- 

° "^ ^ dom of Jeru- 

ed at Tyre as king of Jerusalem. The Tem- saiem. 
plars urged the claims of Charles of Anjou ; the 
Hospitallers insisted with more sense that the dispute 
might be postponed until they had recovered the king- 
dom the title to which they were debating. A few years 
later, when Henry II. of Cyprus held this shadowy 



2i8 The Crusades, ch. xiv. 

dignity, the grand-master of the Templars 

pleaded before Nicholas IV. the wrongs of 
the Latins which could be avenged only by the blood of 
the Saracens. But the power of the ancient spell was 
broken, Nicholas was ready to furnish some men, but 
these were ruffians and criminals, the very offscourings 
of the people : money he obstinately refused to give. 
The grand-master was not more successful elsewhere ; 
and the Italian robbers formed the whole force with 
which he returned to Palestine. 

The last forlorn struggle was made at Acre. Here, as 
elsewhere, the valourof the Templars shone conspicuous. 
Loss of A '^^^ grand-master rejected the bribes of the 

sultan ; but the latter cared little whether he 
could work on the venality of his enemies or whether he 
could not. His Mamelukes were not less courageous 

than the Templars, and their numbers were 

A. D. 1291. . ^ 

overwhelming. The assault began ; the 
titular king of Jerusalem, Henry II. of Cyprus, besought 
the Teutonic knights to occupy his post, promising to 
return the next morning. His request was granted : but 
before the morning came, Henry was on his way to 
Cyprus. The attack was renewed with greater fury ; but 
the Christians had lost all heart. The master of the 
Templars had been killed by a poisoned arrow, and 
seven Knights Hospitallers sailed away, the last remnant 
of the magnificent order which had braved successfully a 
thousand dangers. The city was lost : but the horrors 
of the siege were not ended. The people had hurried to 
the shore ; a storm prevented them from embarking ; 
and the very sea was reddened by the blood of the last 
victims of a wild and fanatical superstition. 



1276-91. The Sequel of the Religious Wars. 219 
CHAPTER XV. 

THE SEQUEL OF THE RELIGIOUS WARS. 

The crusades had come to an end. The embers smoul- 
dered on : but it was to the last degree unlikely that they 
would be rekindled. The great military or- ^ , , , 

*^ . ' Gradual decay 

ders withdrew to seek a field for their ener- and extinction 
gies elsewhere; the Teutonic knights to the ing spirit. 
dreary regions of Lithuania and Poland, — 
the knights of the Hospital first to Cyprus, then to Rhodes 
where, after many a hard fight with Greeks and Saracens, 
they achieved the conquest of the whole island and set- 
tled down to repose in their earthly paradise. The dream 
of returning to Palestine still haunted the mind of Ed- 
ward I., who by his will left 30,000/. for the equipment 
and maintenance of the knights who were to bear his 
heart to the Holy Land ; but probably the last reflection 
of the old fire is seen in the words by which Henry V. in 
his dying moments asserted the bounden duty of princes 
to build the walls of Jerusalem, and declared that, had he 
been spared for a longer life, or had he lived in quieter 
times, he would have undertaken this task of restoration. 
Even now, perhaps, the task was one of no insuperable 
difficulty. Its practicability had been shown more than 
once by its accomplishment ; but it was one which must 
be taken in hand in the spirit of that wise and tolerant 
statesmanship which seeks to further the interests of the 
subject population, and to make one people of the con- 
querors and the conquered. This idea was, as we have 
seen, deliberately rejected by the first crusaders, and, 
with the single exception of the emperor Henry at Con- 
stantinople (p. 170), by all who followed them. There is 
no reason to suppose that the English Henry V. would 



220 The Crusades. ch. xv. 

have been animated by a wiser spirit and a larger char- 
ity than the companions of Godfrey and Tancred. 

The soil of Palestine had been watered abundantly 

with the blood both of Christians and of infidels. The 

soil of Europe, chiefly that of France, was to 

Persecution i . , , 

and suppres- drmk the blood of that haughty but valiant 
Knights order which had done as much to destroy as 

Templars. ^^ maintain the hold of Latin Christendom 

on Palestine. Among all the monstrous iniquities which 
perjured kings and godless statesmen have ever perpe- 
trated, the lies and cruelties, the persistent and diabolical 
injustice which attended the suppression of the Knights 
Templars must hold very nearly the first place. These 
men may have, nay undoubtedly they had, committed 
enormous crimes themselves ; but these were crimes done 
in the sight of the sun and shared by all crusaders of 
every generation, the saintly Louis of France forming, it 
would seem, the solitary exception. Now, when their 
services were no longer needed or could no more be of 
use in Palestine, the benefits to be derived from a confis- 
cation of their properties became patent to 

A. D. 1309. n- 

Philip the Fair, the brutal tyrant, the profli- 
gate murderer, the unscrupulous thief, who bullied the 
pope, Clement V., into a recognition of charges which 
at first he had rightly cast aside as absurd, extravagant, 
and impossible. False witness, tortures, hunger, thirst, 
darkness, filth, and disease in sunless dungeons, were 
all used with consummate skill and pertinacity to sub- 
due the warriors who in the field had never quailed. 
Taken one by one, some made confessions which were 
drawn from them by excruciating agonies, and which, 
when these agonies ceased, were indignantly withdrawn. 
With his remaining comrades the last grand- 
master died, solemnly asserting the inno- 



1314- The Sequel of the Religious Wars. 221 

cence of his order — an innocence unquestionably real, 
if we confine ourselves to the charges brought against 
them by Philip and his myrmidons ; and the kings of 
France, made wealthier by their iniquities, laid up an- 
other count for the great indictment to be brought 
against their luckless representative in the French revo- 
lution. In England the proceedings against the Temp- 
lars, shameful though they were, fell infinitely short of 
the disgrace which covered the king and the judges of 
France : but in both countries it was seen what might 
be done by malignant lies uttered boldly under the plea 
of maintaining the truth and the righteousness of God. 
In this process we see, in fact, the legitimate result of 
the crusades. The unbelief of the Saracen was a suffi- 
cient reason for wresting from him a country 
which was regarded as the inalienable herit- 1249.* The' Al- 
age of Christendom : the alleged unbelief g^Jl^f'^'' ''^' 
or profanity of Templars was a sufficient 
reason for hounding on judges to their destruction ; and 
the heresies truly or falsely alleged against any persons 
whatsoever would be a thorough warrant for carrying 
fire and sword through their land, if gentler means 
failed to extort submission. The lesson had been soon 
learnt ; and while Dandolo and Baldwin were laying the 
foundations of the short-lived Latin empire at Constanti- 
nople, Innocent was preaching a crusade against the 
peaceable, although perhaps not strictly orthodox, sub- 
jects of count Raymond of Toulouse. The attempt to 
put down error by force was producing its natural fruits ; 
and men like Bernard and Innocent were brought to 
consider every means lawful, every weapon hallowed, 
against the wretched enemies of Christ and of his 
Church. Horrible miscreants, like the inquisitdrs Fulk 
of Marseilles and Arnold of Amaury, could without a 



222 The Crusades. ch. xv. 

pang of remorse involve in one common slaughter the 
aged and the young, the mother and the infant ; and 
Simon of Montfort, cased in the triple armour of a heart 
harder than the nether millstone, could exult with sav- 
age joy over the massacres of his sword and the tor- 
ments of the Inquisition. In this awful chaos Frederick 
II., the enemy of the pope, the friends of Saracenic 
philosophers, of Moslem women, joined furiously in the 
fray. Near in its ideal, and similar in some points of its 
development, as was the careless society of the trouba- 
dour to his own luxurious civilization in Sicily, yet not a 
sign is there to show that he regarded with the least 
emotion its rapid and terrible catastrophe. His appre- 
ciation of their Gay Science, of their art, their refine- 
ment, and their luxury, was chilled and quenched by the 
thought of the vile crowd of Petrobrussians and other 
vulgar heretics, by whom these careless voluptuaries 
were surrounded. Well may it be said that never in any 
history were the principles of justice, the faith of treaties, 
common humanity so trampled under foot as in the Al- 
bigensian crusade, ' Slay on ; God will know his own,* 
was the cry of the papal legate before the walls of 
Beziers ; and this easy method of settling a long con- 
troversy was the moral logically drawn from the preach- 
ing of the hermit Peter and of Bernard of Clairvaux. 

It is possible that the historian who seeks to account 
for all the characteristics which mark the era of the cru- 
The children's sadcs may connect these expeditions with 
crusades. some cvents which should be traced to other 

causes. The impulses which bring vast crowds together 
for any purpose are always more or less contagious : and 
the middle ages exhibit, throughout, a series of enthusi- 
astic rishigs. The outbreak of the Pastoureaux, or Shep- 
herds (so called from their supposed simplicity), which 



A. D. I2I2. 



1202. The Sequel of the Religious Wars, 223 

for a time led astray even Blanche of Castile (p. 196), 
took place, perhaps only by an accidental coincidence, 
while Louis IX. was a captive in Egypt: but it w-as only 
one of a thousand instances of what has well been 
termed superstition set in motion. To this class belong 
probably the expeditions known as the Children's cru- 
sades, although these were started with the idea of re- 
covering the Holy Cross from the infidel. A few words 
may suffice to tell the miserable story how in 
France under the boy Stephen 30,000 chil- 
dren encamped around Vendome ; how 10,000 were lost 
or had strayed away before they reached Marseilles a 
month later; how there they waited under a conviction 
that the waters of the Mediterranean would be cloven 
asunder to give them a passage on dry land ; how at 
length two merchants offered ' for the cause of God and 
without charge ' to convey them in ships to Palestine ; 
and how the 5,000 children, who sailed from the harbour 
chanting the hymn Ve7ii Creator Spiritus, found them- 
selves at the end of their voyage in the slave markets of 
Alexandria and Algiers. A pendant to this woful tale is 
found in the sufferings of the 20,000 German boys and 
girls who set out in the same year from Cologne under 
the peasant lad Nicholas 20,000 strong, and of whom 
5,000 only reached Genoa. Of the rest some had re- 
turned home: some marched to Brindisi, and, setting 
sail for Palestine, were never heard of more. The for- 
tune of those who found their way to Genoa was more 
happy. Invited to settle there by the senate, many be- 
came wealthy, and not a few, rising to distinction, 
founded some of the noblest families in the state. 

But as the motives which led to the crusades were 
complex, so their results were complex also. The Picture 



224 7he Crusades. ch. xv. 

^ J. must not be presented only in its darker 

Indirect re- ^ . 

suits of the aspects. We have seen the effect which they 
produced on the growth of the temporal 
power of the popes. We must not forget that by rolling 
back the tide of Mahomedan conquest from Constanti- 
nople for upwards of four centuries they probably saved 
Europe from horrors the recital of which might even now 
make our ears tingle ; that by weakening the resources 
and the power of the barons they strengthened the 
authority of the kings acting in alliance with the citizens 
of the great towns ; that this alliance broke up the feudal 
system, gradually abolished serfdom, and substituted the 
authority of a common law for the arbitrary will of chiefs 
who for real or supposed affronts rushed to the arbitra- 
ment of private war. Worthless in themselves, and 
wholly useless as means for founding any permanent 
dominion in Palestine or elsewhere, these enterprises 
have affected the commonwealths of Europe in ways of 
which the promoters never dreamed. They left a wider 
gulf between the Greek and the Latin churches, between 
the subjects of the Eastern empire and the nations of 
Western Europe ; but by the mere fact of throwing East 
and West together they led gradually to that interchange 
of thought and that awakening of the human intellect to 
which we owe all that distinguishes our modern civiliza- 
tion from the religious and political systems of the 
middle ages. 



INDEX. 



ABB 
A BBASSIDE caliphs of Bagdad, 

Abelard, 88 

Abubekr, 13 

Acre, siege of, 127 ; surrender of, 133 

Adela, daughter of WiUiam the Con- 
queror, 80 

Adelais, 120 

Adhemar, bishop of Puy, 44, 58, 69, 70 

Albigensians, crusades against the, 
222 

Alexander II., pope, 2, 21 

Alexandria, surrender of, to Almeric, 
100 

Alexios, brother of Isaac Angelus, 

153, 159 ^ , T. 

Alexios emperor of the East, 17, 24, 
51 ; extorts the homage of the cru- 
saders, 53 ; his conduct to the cru- 
saders, 54 ; fails to aid them, 71 ; 
benefited by the crusaders, 81 ; 
death of, 83 

Alexios, son of Isaac Angelus, 153, 
156, 161 

Alexios Strategopoulos, 180 

Alfonso, king of Gallicia, 38 

Almeric, king of Jerusalem, 98 

Almeric of Lusignan, king of Cyprus 
and titular king of Jerusalem, 144, 
183 

Amalfi, merchants of, 18 

Andrew, king of Hungary, 176, 186 

Anna Comnena, 50, 54 

Antioch, siege of, 60 ; betrayed to 
Bohemond, 65 ; fall of, 69 

Arnold, chaplain of Bohemond, 68, 73 

Arnold of Amaury, 221 

Arthur of Brittany, 129 

Artois, count of, 210 

Ascalon, Battle of, 77 ; fall of, 98 

Assize of Jerusalem, 78, 170 

Augustine, St., 8 

Austria, Leopold, duke of, 133 

Azan the Bulgarian, 179 

Azotus, battle of, 132 

BAGHASIAN, 60, 63, 65 
Baldwin I., brother of Godfrey 
of Bouillon, 43, 59 
Baldwin II., emperor of the East, 175 
Baldwin II., king of Jerusalem, 84 

Q 



CON 

Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem, 85 
Baldwin IV., king of Jerusalem, 104 
Baldwin V., king of Jerusalem, 104 
Baldwin du Bourg, 84 
Baldwin, lord of Edessa, 59 ; king of 

Jerusalem, 80, 84 
Baldwin of Flanders, emperor of the 

East, 163, 173 
Baldwin of Hainault, 70 
Barbarossa [Fredeiick I.] 
Bela, king of Hungary, 121 
Berengaria, 129, 130 
Bernard, patriarch of Antioch, 70 
Bernard, St., 86, et seq. 
Bertrand of Toulouse, 81 
Blanche of Castile, 203, 223 
Blondel, 138 
Bodin, 53 
Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, 

23.45,52,81 
Boniface, marquis of Montferrat, 152, 

172, 175 
Bouvines, battle of, 189 
Brienne, constable of Apulia, 23 
Brienne, John of, 184, 199 
Bulgarians, 173 

CALO JOHN, 173, 175 
Charles of Anjou, 217 
Charles the Great, 21 
Chivalry, cause and effect of, 46 
Chosroes [Khosru] 
Christianity, the, of the first century, 

3 ; influence of paganism upon, 5 ; 

modified by the Roman imperial 

tradition, 20 
Cid, the, 38 
Clement IV., pope, 213 
Clement V., pope, 220 
Cogni [Iconium] 

Conrad, bishop of Hildesheim, 142 
Conrad, emperor of Germany, 90, 92, 

142 
Conrad of Tyre, no, 127, 134 
Constantia, heiress of Sicily, 125, 128 
Constantine, church of, at Jerusalem, 

8 
Constantinople, first siege of, by 

the Latins, 158 ; second siege and 

conquest of, 162 : Latin emperors 

of, 168; — Baldwin I., 163, 174; 

225 



226 



Index. 



FER 

Henry, brother of Baldwin, 175 ; 
Peter of Courtenay, 176 ; Robert, 
177; John of Brienne, 178; Bald- 
win II., 179 ; — Latin empire of, 
168 ; recovery of, by the Greeks, 181 

Coradin, sultan of Syria, 186 

Council of Clermont, 29 

Council of Lyons, 217 

Council of Nice, 17 

Council of Piacenza, 24 

Councils of Lateran, 116, 185 

Courtenay, Joceline of, 84, 97 

Courtenay, Peter of, 176, 177 

Courtesy, 48 

Courts of Love, 95 

Cross, discovery of the true, 7 ; re- 
covery of, 12 

Crusaders, numbers of the, 56; fero- 
city of the, 75 

Crusades, causes tending to, i et seq.; 
financial effects of, 34 ; effects of, 
on the power of the pope and the 
clergy, 35 ; on the feudal system, 
36 ; not national enterprises, 37 ; 
against the Albigensians, 222 ; the 
Children's, 222 ; indirect results of 
the, 224 

DAIMBERT, patriarch of Jeru- 
salem, 78 
Damascus, siege of, 95 
Damietta, 116, 186, 209 
Dandolo, Henry, doge of Venice, 

163, 168, 172 
Dargham, 98 
David [Kilidje Arslan] 
Demetrius, lord of Thessalonica, 178 
Dorylaion, battle of, 58 
Durazzo, 23, 81, 173 

EDESSA, conquest of, by Bald- 
win, 59 ; by Zenghis, 85 

Edward I., of England, 216, 217, 218, 
219 

Eleanor of Poitou, wife of Louis VII., 
88, 92, 95 ; marries Henry of Nor- 
mandy, afterwards Henry II. of 
England, 95 ; writes to Cselestine 
IIL, 138 

Eleanor, wife of Edward I., 216 

Emico, count of Leiningen, 40 

Engelbert of Tournay, 74 

Eugenius III., pope, 89 

Eustace, count of Boulogne, 43 

FATIMITE sultans of Egypt, 14, 
62, 98, 99, 102 
Ferentino, treaty of,i9o 



HOS 

Frederick I., Barbarossa, 124, 125 

Frederick II., grandson of Barba- 
rossa, i8;j et seq., 207, 222 

Fulk of Anjou, king of Jerusalem, 85, 
117 

Fulk of Marseilles, 221 

Fulk of Neuilly, 148 



GENGHIS KHAN, 201 
Geoffrey, archbishop of York, 
120 

Geoffrey of Villehardouin, 150,172,175 

Gerold, patriarch of Jerusalem, 198 

Godfrey of Bouillon, 43, 49, 66, 72 ; 
baron and defender of the Holy 
Sepulchre, 77 ; reign and death of, 
80 

Gottschalk. the monk, 40 

Greeks and Latins, antagonism be- 
tween, 56, 168, 180 

Gregory I., the Great, 10, 20 

Gregory VII., pope |"Hildebrand] 

Gregory VIII. , pope, ii8 

Gregory IX., pope, 191, 193,200 

Gregory X., pope, 217 

Guelf, duke of Bavaria, 39 

Guibert, abbot, 33 

Guido, abbot of Vaux Cerng.y, 155 

Guiscard, Robert, 24 

Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, 
104 ; of Cyprus, 134 

HAKEM, 15 
Haroun-al-Reschid, 25 
Helena, church of, at Bethlehem, 8 
Henry II., king of Cyprus, 218 
Henry II. of England, 117, 119, 120, 

121 
Henry IV., emperor, 25, 43 
Henry V. of England, 219 
Henry VI., emperor, 134,138,139,140 
Henry, Latin emperor of the East, 

175, 176, 219 . , . 

Henry of Champagne, titular king of 

Jerusalem, 134 
Heraclius, emperor of the East, 11, 12 
Heraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, 117 
Herakleios [Heraclius] 
Herman of Salza, 127, 195, 197 
Hildebrand [Gregory Vll.], 2, 21 et 

seq. 
Hohenstaufen, house of, 188 
Holy Land, growth of local traditions 

in the, 7 
Honorius III., pope, 177, iSg, 202 
Hospitallers, or knights of St. John, 

lor, 108, 113, 141, 214, 217 



Index. 



21'J 



LAT 
Hugh III., king of Cyprus, 217 
Hugh of Vermandois, 43, 49, 69, 83 
Hungary, conversion of, 16 

T CONIUM, sultan of, 58, 82 

J. Ingulf, 16 

Innocent II., pope, 88 

Innocent III., pope, 145, 165, 189 

Innocent IV., pope, 202 

Isaac Angelus, emperor of the East, 

119. 153 
Isaac of Cyprus, 130 
Isabella, sister of. Baldwin IV., king 

of Jerusalem, 127, 178, 183 

JAMES du Chastel, 211 
Jerome, St., at Bethlehem, 9 

Jerusalem, Assize of, 78,170; Latin 
kingdom of, 77 ; Latin kings of, 77 ; 
Godfrey, 77; Baldwin I., 80; 
Baldwin II., 84 ; Fulk of Anjou, 
85 ; Baldwin III., 85 ; Almeric, 98 , 
Baldwin IV., 104 ; Baldwin V. 104; 
Guy of Lusignan, 104 ; Henry of 
Champagne (titular), 134 ; Almeric 
of Lusignan (titular), 144 

Jerusalem, captured by the Persians, 
10 ; by Omar, 12 ; by Hakem, 15 ; 
by the Seljukian Toucush, 17 ; by 
the first crusaders, 72 ; by Saladin, 
105 ; by Kameel, 196 

Jews, persecution of the, 40, 91, 122. 

Jews, plunder of the, 119. 

Joanna, sister of Richard I., 128, 134 

Joceline of Courtenay, 84, 97 

John Comnenos, 50 

John of Brienne, 178 

John of England, 135 

John, St., Hospital of, 18 

John the monk, 96 

Joinville, 206, et seq. 

KAMEEL, sultan of Egypt, 186 ; 
treaty of, with Frederick II., 

196, 200 ; takes Jerusalem, 201 
Kerboga, 66, 68, 69 
Khosru II., 10 
Khosru Nushirvan, 11 
Kilidje Arslan, 42, 58, 6(i, 69. 
Knighthood, 47 
Knights Hospitallers, loi, 108, 113, 

141, 214,218 
Knights Templars, 90, 113, 214 
Knights, Teutonic, 127, 214, 218 
Korasmians, 202 

LANCE, discovery of the holy, 6^ 
Lateran, councils of, 116, 185 



PET 

Latin empire of Constantinople, 168 ; 
kingdom of Jerusalem, 77 ; em- 
perors of Constantinople, 169 ; 
kings of Jerusalem, 77, 144 

Latins and Greeks, antagonism be- 
tween, 55, 168, 181 

Leo III,, pope, 21 

Letold of Tournay, 74 

Lothair, cardinal [Innocent III.] 

Louis VI., the Fat, 88 

Louis VII., king of France, 92, 117 

Louis IX., king of France, 203, et 
seq.; death of, 215 

Lusignan, Almeric of, 144, 183 ; Guy 
of, 104, 134 

Lyons, council of, 217 

MAHOMED, embassy from, to 
Khosru II., II 
Mamelukes, 218 

Manuel, emperor of the East, 93, 102 
Marra, siege of, 71 
Mary, niece of Baldwin IV., king of 

Jerusalem, 184 
Maynard, nephew of Conrad of Tyre, 

137 . 
Merovingian kings of France, 98 
Moadhin, sultan of Damascus, 196 
Montferrat, marquis of, 152 
Montfort, Simon of, 150, 155, 158 
Montfort, Simon of, earl of Leicester, 

203 
Morosini, Thomas, patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, 165, 167, 171 
Mostadhi, caliph of Bagdad, 100 
Mourzoufle, 161, 162, 173 

NICiE, Nikaia [Nice] 
Nice, Seljukian sovereigns of, 
17 ; siege of, 57 
Nicephorus III., emperor, 23 
Nicolas IV., pope, 218 
Nicolas, the child crusader, 223 
Nineveh, battle of, 11 
Noureddin, sultan of Aleppo, 98, 99, 
103 

OMAR, the caliph, 12 
Oriflamme, the, 208 
Otho of Brunswick, emperor, 188 

PASCAL II., pope, 78 
Pastoreaux, 222 
Pelagius, bishop of Albano, 185 
Peter Barthelemy, 68 
Peter of Blois, 138 
Peter of Capua, 154, 157 
Peter the Chanter, 148 



228 



Index. 



siw 

peter of Courtenay, Latin emperor 

of the East, 176 
Peter the Hermit, 26, et seq.; 38, 62, 

68, 73. 75 
Philip Augustus, King of France, 119, 

138, 171 
PhiHp I., king of France, 25, 43, 81 
Philip IV., the Fair, king of France, 

220 
Philip of Namur, 177 
Philip of Swabia, 154, 156 
Philip [titular], Latin emperor of the 

East, 181 
Piacenza, council of, 24 
Pilgrimage, growth of, 8 
Pilgrims, tax on, at Jerusalem, 15 
Phirouze, the renegade, 63 
Placentia, council of, 24 
Pontius, son of Bertrand of Tou- 
louse, 81 

RAYMOND, count of Toulouse, 
45, 53 

Raymond of Tripoli, 104 

Rhazates, 12 

Richard, earl of Cornwall, 197, 201 

Richard I'st of England, 114, 117 ; at 
Messina, 128 ; at Rhodes, 130 ; at 
Acre, 130 ; retreats from Bethle- 
hem, 135 : at Jaffa, 136 ; imprison- 
ment, 137; return of, to England,i4o 

Robert, count of Flanders, 44 

Robert, count of Paris, 52 

Robert duke of Normandy, 44, 60, 63 

Robert,Latin emperor of the East,i77 

Robert of Courcon, 185, 186 

Rodolph of Hapsburg, 217 

Rodolph the Monk, 91 

Roger, successor of Tancred, 82 

SAADI, 183 
Saladin tax or tithe, 119 
Saladin, 99, 102 ; enters Jerusalem, 

no ; death of, 141 
Samosata, 60 

San Germano, treaty of, 191 
Saphadin, 136, 141 ; takes Jaffa, 143; 

offers peace, 183 ; death of, 186 
Seljukian Turks, 17 
Shawer, 98, 102 
Shepherds of Pastoreaux, 222 
Shiracouh, 98, 102 
Sibylla, 104, 127 
Sidon, conquest of, 84 
Simon of Montfort, 150, 155, 158 
Simon of Montfort, earl of Leicester, 

.203 
Siroes 12 
Siward, 84 



ZIA 

Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, 

12 
Stephen, apostle of Hungary, 16 
Stephen, count of Chartres, 44, 66, 70, 

80 
Stephen Harding, 87 
Stephen, the child crusader, 223 

TANCRED, 45, 59, 69, 75, 81 
Tancred, son of Roger of 

Apulia, 129, 141 
Tatikios, 62, 71 
Templars, knights, 90, 113, 214, 218, 

221 
Teutonic knights, 127, 214, 218 
Theobald, archdeacon of Liege, 218 
Theobald, count of Champagne, 89, 

150 
Theodore Lascaris, 173 
Thierry, count of Flanders, 95 
Thoron, siege of, 142 
Tiberias, battle of, 105 
Toucush, 18 

Trebizond, empire of, 173 
Tristan, 211 
Truce of God, 30, 47 
Turan Shah, 212 
Tyre, conquest of, 84 

UGOLINO [Gregory IX ] 
Urban II., pope, at Piacenza, 
24 ; at Clermont, 25, 30 ; death of, 78 
Urban III., pope, 118 

VATACES, John, emperor of Ni- 
csea, 178, 179 
Venice, growth of the power of, 164 
Victor III., pope, 24 
Villehardouin, Geoffrey of, 150, 174, 

175 
Vorylas, 175 

WALTER of Brienne, 150 
Walter the Penniless, 40, 42 

William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, 
138 

William Longsword, bishop of Salis- 
bury, 201, 209 

William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, 
186 

William of Melun, 62 

William of Scotland, 117, 122 

William of Tyre, 119 

William the Conqueror, 2, 21. 

William Rufus, 39 

ZARA, expedition t©, 153, 155 
Zenghis sultan of Aleppo, 85 
Ziani, doge of Venice, 168 



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